Stanford Immersive Neuroscience
September 7-17, 2021
Instructors
- John Huguenard, Ph.D.
Department of Neurology - Scott Owen, Ph.D.
Department of Neurosurgery - Erin Gibson Ph.D.
Department of Psychiatry - Lisa Giocomo Ph.D.
Department of Neurobiology - Shaul Hestrin, Ph.D.
Department of Comparative Medicine - Merritt Maduke, Ph.D.
Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology - Sui Wang, Ph.D.
Department of Ophthalmology
Teaching Assistants
Deniz Bingul, Scott Owen Lab
URee Chon, Liqun Luo Lab
Shawn Dhillon, Richard Lewis Lab
What is Stanford Immersive Neuroscience?
All incoming students are required to take the Stanford Immersive Neuroscience (SIN) course, a two-week program that introduces students to single cell physiology and molecular biological techniques. The "bootcamp" has been a favorite of students for many years and remains a cornerstone of the program. Students interact with faculty and senior students to design experiments, collect data (electrophysiology of single neurons, as well as optical imaging and circuit excitation), and analyze/interpret/present on the data collected. In addition, students are introduced to potential faculty mentors who discuss their training philosophy and research interests.
John Huguenard
Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences
Dr. Huguenard's approach is an analysis of the cells and microcircuits that make up thalamic and cortical circuits. His lab also uses computational approaches to build physiologically constrained network models to test and improve understanding of the circuit.
Scott Owen
Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and (by courtesy) of Neurobiology
Dr. Owen studies how neuromodulation can shape the activity of targeted cell types and circuits to guide behavior. Our goal is to understand how specialized physiology, connectivity, and cell-signaling support the diverse functions of individual neuronal cell types.
Hear what our students had to say
...I loved that fact that instead of superficially covering a broad range of topics, we decided to focus on specific topic and learn it well. I felt that I really understood what was done in lab, and that each session & lecture built on the last. Overall a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
I realize that teaching bootcamp to a wide range of interests and backgrounds is extremely difficult, and I think that both the faculty and the students made a valiant effort. I was very impressed by the time commitment that both the faculty and the students made in order to have bootcamp be well organized and functional. I really liked the social aspect of bootcamp, both for getting to know faculty, TAs, and especially other students in my class.
... the presentations were one of the most valuable experiences of boot camp. The unstructured nature mimics what it will be like throughout grad school and the rest of our professional lives, and the skills we obtained by collectively figuring out a direction for our presentation as a group are skills that can't be taught through a lecture or reading.