fMRI course

  • Title: “Neuroimaging: from image to inference”.
  • Instructor: Chris Rorden :: rorden@gatech.edu :: 404 385-8621.
  • Course Code: None: this is a free course, there is no assessment, one cannot earn credit. Suitable for faculty, post-docs, PhD students and advanced undergraduate students.
  • When: Spring Semester 2010 – Mondays from 2:00-4:00pm.
  • Where: CABI conference room 831 Marietta St, Atlanta, GA .
  • Instructor: Dr. Chris Rorden
  • Textbook: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging by Huettel, Song, and McCarthy
  • Description: Functional magnetic resonance imaging is a recent and powerful tool for inferring brain function. This technique identifies brain regions that are activated by different tasks – for example we can find the brain regions that activate when someone sees a familiar face. This course is designed to give students an understanding of the potential and limitations of this technique, and the ability to critically evaluate the inferences that can be drawn from fMRI. The course describes all stages of an fMRI study – from the design of the behavioral task (e.g. asking the participant to view faces), to the image processing (e.g. correcting images for head movements that occurred during scanning), through to statistical analysis (identifying brain regions that are activated by a task).

Lectures

  1. Jan 11, 2010: Overview.
  2. Jan 18, 2010: — School holiday —
  3. Jan 25, 2010: MRI physics: Image Acquisition.. Get the vodcast
  4. Feb 1, 2010: MRI physics: Image Contrast. Get the vodcast
    • The virtual MR program allows you to interactively adjust MRI parameters and see the results.
  5. Feb 8, 2010: fMRI Paradigm Design.
  6. Feb 15, 2010: Statistics and Thresholding.
  7. Feb 22, 2010: Spatial Processing I: Spatial Registration – realignment (motion correction), coregistration, normalization; Spatial interpolation – linear, spline, sinc functions
  8. Mar 1, 2010: Spatial Processing Continued II: Smoothing – filters, edge detection, gaussian blur; Advanced spatial concepts: homogeneity correction, motion related intensity changes, undistorting EPI images (using field maps).
  9. Mar 8, 2010: Temporal Processing
  10. Mar 15, 2010: Detecting subtle changes in brain structure: Voxel Based Morphometry and Diffusion Tensor Imaging.
  11. Mar 22, 2010: — Spring break —
  12. Mar 29, 2010: Lesion symptom mapping
  13. Apr 5, 2010:Advanced methods Includes adaptation, sparse and resting state paradigms; analysis includes ICA, effective and functional connectivity; alternatives include ASL and perhaps msMRI.
  14. Apr 12, 2010: FSL and SPM hands on demonstrations – Dr Kate Pirog Revill
  15. Apr 19, 2009: Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation – Dr Chip Epstein
  16. Apr 26, 2009: Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) tutorial.
  17. May 18, 2010: Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS)hands on demonstrations

Older Tutorials (previous versions of FSL, SPM):

Relevant Links: