fMRI Visiting Fellowship Program
Where: Charlestown, Massachusetts (5 minutes from Boston)
Contact: Robert Savoy via email at savoy@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu
fMRI Visiting Fellowship Course (Conference/Symposium/Event) Functional MRI, Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital
DATES: Sep 28 - Oct 2, 2009 (full) Mar 22, 2010 (probable date; or else Mar 29 - Apr 2, 2010) Sep 27 - Oct 1, 2010
The 5-day Visiting Fellowship Program in Functional MRI has been held more than 45 times since its inception in October of 1994. It is a world-reknown introduction to the basics of Functional MRI, presented in an intense workshop that emphasizes experimental design in the context of a thorough grounding in image acquisition, task design, data analysis and a collection of "cautionary tales" to give the participant a good feel for the pitfalls of fMRI-based research, as well as its power. It is held at the home of the first human functional MRI experiments: The Athinoula A. Martinos Center For Biomedical Imaging of the Massachusetts General Hospital, near Boston, Massachusetts.
The purpose of the present workshop is to provide a serious introduction to this field. It is primarily intended for people new to the field, and for those who have had some experience but seek a more thorough and principled introduction.
CURRICULUM Students will receive a firm grounding in the fundamentals of fMRI. This will include the basic physics of MR imaging, the biology and biophysics of the hemodynamic responses to neural activity, data analysis (including both exploratory and statistical analyses), stimulus presentation and response recording in the context of high magnetic fields and electromagnetic pulses, and the design of perceptual and cognitive experiments.
A special emphasis of the course will be the design, implementation, and execution of perceptual and/or cognitive experiments by the participants. Participants will break into small groups to design their own fMRI experiments. Barring unforeseen problems, some of these experiments will be executed, and the resulting data analyzed, on the final day of the course. (NOTE: The ideas and principles involved in data analysis will be emphasized. There will not be training in any specific software package. Other programs at the Martinos Center are offered for that purpose.)
The core faculty is drawn from the staff of the Athinoula A. Martinos Center (of the Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and affiliated faculty from Harvard University, Boston University, McLean Hospital and other institutions.
Contact Information: Robert Savoy
savoy@nmr.mgh.harvard.edu http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/martinos/training/fMRIVisitFellowProg.php
