Introduction to fMRI

1. Introduction to fMRI

2. Introduction to fMRI • Instructor: James Danckert • Class times: Tuesdays 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm room PAS 4032 • Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 4:00 – 5:00 pm room 4040 PAS or by appointment. • Phone: extension 7014 • Email: jdancker@watarts.uwaterloo.ca

3. Aims of the course • To make you familiar with the different designs typically used in fMRI research – e.g., block vs. event related and rapid event related fMRI. • To expose you to the most common analysis techniques of fMRI including, t-tests, linear correlations, GLM, etc. To point you in the right direction for more novel techniques not yet widely used such as ICA. • To briefly introduce you to alternate imaging techniques including TMS, PET, EEG etc. • To provide you with the practical skills to design, conduct and analyze your own fMRI experiment.

4. Format • Section 1 • didactic lectures from me covering the basics of the technique • Section 2 • each week will examine one aspect of cognition and fMRI • two students will present – one giving a review of the literature thus far (based on a chapter from Cabeza and Kingstone) and the other presenting a recent research article relevant to the topic (each student will be expected to make one of each type of presentation)

5. Reading • For the technical side of things you can go through the following two web sites in more detail • http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~jdancker/fMRI/fMRI_OL.htm - this is my web site for the more technical course delivered last year • http://defiant.ssc.uwo.ca/Jody_web/fmri4dummies.htm • - this is Jody Culham’s web course which I based my course on • Chapters of Cabeza and Kingstone’s book will be used for the reviews while students will be expected to find their own relevant articles for the recent research paper - search PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi

6. Reading

7. Other recommended reading! • John Ralston Saul Voltaire’s Bastards – this book has at least a million messages, one of which is to avoid keeping secrets – in other words, make sure you can communicate your results to anyone! • Theodore Zeldin An Intimate History of Humanity – Zeldin shows many different viewpoints on life exposing how people forget history or ignore its influence on the present. • Ramon y Cajal Advice for a Young Investigator – written in the early part of last century this little book (much more so than the other two!) has wisdom relevant to all of us – well worth reading.

8. Assessment • Critique the following fMRI paper and provide an alternate design that addresses your criticisms. • Marois, R., Chun, M.M., and Gore, J.C. Neural Correlates of the Attentional Blink. Neuron, 28, 299 – 308. • Your paper should be less than 2000 words and counts for 30% of your mark. • Design an fMRI study of your own. Present a brief (very brief!) theoretical background, a detailed outline of design and analysis, justifying your choices. • Your paper should be less than 2000 words and counts for 30% of your mark. • Class presentations – each student will two presentations – one on a review of the literature and another on a recent research article – this is worth 25% • Students not presenting each week will be responsible for asking questions of the presenters to lead class discussion – this is worth the final 15% of your mark.