neuroscience, magnetic resonance, functional mri, fMRI, neurosurgery, brain mapping, cognitive neuroscience, eeg, positron emission tomography, ucla, neuroimaging, pulse sequences, alzheimer's, parkinsons, perception, neurophysiology, magnetic resonance imaging, functional magnetic resonance imaging, cognition, psychology, epilepsy, PET, optical intrinsic signal, OIS, QEEG, magnetoencephalography, MEG, spectroscopy

What was the Most Valuable Part of the Course?

The level of the speakers was absolutely incredible--the NITP was an amazing opportunity to ask questions of the leaders of our field.  The balance between hands on work and lectures allowed us to apply what we were learning right away.  I have used the online portion of the course, and have shown it to my students as a part of their education, too.

I learned a lot about the basic processes involved in both the brain and in the methods of fMRI. These gave me the confidence to explore the neuroimaging side of my research. 

The instructors and organizers are nice, patient and knowledgeable. I learned a lot from them. Also, the attendees are good too, and we have exchanged experience. I have dozens friends in facebook who I met in NITP. We are still in touch and discussing things.

The breadth of the course plus the hands on experience was outstanding.

In a field where methods are elaborate, constantly changing, and subject to interpretation, an open forum where experts in the field can discuss the advantages and disadvantages of one approach over another is invaluable. 

Many talks were very interesting and clarified some of the questions I had about analyses. FSL methods talks were also highly informative, as I hadn't used FSL before. Different types of software implement analyses differently and it was really interesting to compare. Although I didn't end up using FSL until years later, having had a primer during the summer school definitely helped. Thank you also for the free brain atlas, and for the great accommodation and food. I appreciated all the effort that went into putting the summer school together. I also met many interesting people.

lectures on advanced fmri methods

To see that in Europe we are not at the end of the world, compared to the participants coming form all your very famous universities in US ;-) It was a great experience! Many thanks again!!

Meeting other people in the field. Establishing future connections.

The quality and knowledge of the speakers and their personal engagement.

the diversity of topics and the hands-on lab section

- I very much appreciated the syllabus itself, especially the fact that we covered a lot of different topics. Thanks to this course, now I feel I have a much broader and complete view of what can be done in the field of neuroimaging, both in terms of methods of investigation and data analysis. In this respect I think the school totally met the objective of providing a "solid foundation in state-of-the-art functional neuroimaging methods". I also have to add that I was impressed by the overall quality of the lectures and the great effort that was made to make them accessible. - I thought the labs were a great strength of the program: having to manipulate theoretical notions taught during the classes helped me a great deal understanding them. I also discovered new tools and resources I didn't know about. - Eventually I very much enjoyed doing a group project, for several reasons. First of all, interacting with students from other foreign labs was very enriching for me, as we shared our past experiences with fMRI and our views on how to run a project, from  study design to data analysis. Second of all, I'm convinced that it is not before you start working on your own data that you can fully understand what you're doing in terms of analysis... and that you start asking yourself many questions !! Everytime we pressed a button or ticked a box we had to know what FSL was doing and how it was doing it, and this little mental gymnastic clarified a lot of things for me...

Excellent selection of speakers and topics. I learned new methods for both data acquisition and data analysis; have approached my data slightly differently which is great.

the group project

Many of the speakers provided concrete and highly relevant examples of the effects of doing analyses (preprocessing or otherwise) in multiple ways (for example, screen shots of motion corrected vs. not motion corrected data, as well as numerous examples of how to spot fMRI artifacts. Those examples clarified greatly things I had only understood in the abstract before, and were a testament to the real expertise that was gathered together in the instructors of the course.

I found the hand on learning in the lab and group project to be the most valuable experience. I was introduced to new software programs that have allowed me to develop more sophisticated research models and have enhanced the quality of my work.

The lectures were outstanding. We were exposed to so many critical and cutting-edge issues in neuroimaging and had the opportunity to learn about them in an in-depth manner. I learned about many new approaches, and the material was presented in a very effective way, allowing me to implement new techniques in my own work.

The lab sessions on machine learning, connecitivity analysis and ICA.

a) Lectures: The lectures at the UCLA summer program were given at a high scientific level by experts in the field. Also the overall structure of the summer program was excellent. The topics ranged from experimental design, and data acquisition, over data analysis, to interpretation of the analysis results. Hence the course program covered all aspects of the "data chain" of a neuroimaging experiment. I believe that this approach is suitable, since by that program structure the attendee become aware of the different parts of the data chain that influence the final "result" of the analysis. Additionally quite novel analysis procedures were presented at the summer school. In particular I remember the inspiring talks by N. Kriegeskorte.

I found the statistics components of the course particularly valuable.  Quite difficult concepts were explained clearly and certainly increased my understanding of imaging statistics.

It wasn't one! It was the combination of (a) excellent instructors, (b) extended period of time, (c) the interaction with a very good selection of attendants representing different backgrounds, which combined  made up a fascinating and extremely useful program.

practical trianing

state-of-art methods topic leader speakers unity of theory and practice

hands on practical lessons. lesson's given by Russ. Also lesson relating to programming was helpful.

The range of topics and the possibility of contact with the speakers. The care in assembling groups of people with complementary skills.

I have been to many summer schools in the past, but this is by far the best summer school I have attended. Not only it covered the basics and advanced topics, it also had the hands on session. Best experience ever!

Learning the statistical methods underlying functional neuroimaging.

to get an overview (both theoretical and practical) about different ways of analysing fMRI data; the statistics lectures were brilliant too!

Its immersive nature. I was better able to consolidate the diverse and complex material in the presence of others doing the same thing - free of distractions and with singular focus.

The 'design your own study and analyze it' portion.

Lectures about data analysis techniques.  Hands-on data analysis. 

Practical implementation of theory taught

Having both lecture and lab sessions was an integral part of the course.  It allowed me to integrate the concepts I learned in the lectures with the lab work, in particular the group project where we had to design our own experiment, scan a subject, analyze the data and present our results.

Learning new MRI ideas I had never heard of before.  Also, interacting with new students and collaborators.

Being exposed to expertise in a wide variety of issues pertaining to imaging. This course changed my life. It inspired me to change schools for my PhD because I wasn't happy with the level of research knowledge and experience at my former institution. I also liked the hands on application portion using fsl - it has been particularly helpful in my research.

The most valuable part of the course was the ability to catch speakers after talks and have lunch and dinner time to address more specific questions that were not answered directly in the lectures or labs.  Not every speaker made themselves available, but most of the 'technical' speakers (e.g., speakers about pre-processing methods and statistics) made themselves available.

I found the graduate student/post-doc assistants to be incredibly helpful. I know it required a significant investment from them and, well, it was very appreciated. Furthermore, I find Mark Cohen to be both brilliant and very approachable. In my experience, those two traits don't co-occur all that often. It's clear that he and Susan Bookheimer are committed to training the next generation of research scientists.

Meeting experts and peers, gaining a direct insight into scientific work and method developments

the lectures

Opportunity to ask direct questions to experts in several different neuroimaging fields.  Particular lecturers really challenged my beliefs/knowledge of particular areas.

Learning the latest analysis approaches

The most valuable parts of the course were:
1) The presentations were of very high quality. The course covered all of the most important aspects of neuroimaging. I have been using the video podcast from 2007/2008 NITP lectures in my lab in New Zealand as a learning tool for new students and researchers.

2) The discussion and collaboration that took place amongst participants during the course was very productive. It provided me with a different insight into the scientific questions that I was interested in.

3) Another valuable part of the course was the practical hand-on sessions with MRI scanner.

Some of the physics was hard to understand.  It was very interesting and enjoyable but I am not sure how it will be useful in my work.

It did not cover the travel expenses.

The hands on practical training should be a given a bit more time.

My primary criticism is that at times I was distracted from the material with the thought that funding constraints might prevent future researchers from reaping a similar benefit.  Also, there was an instance where we ran out of diet coke.

Team-working didn't work as well as would have been desirable. For one -- don't assign people to a group, (identifying information removed - msc) let them gravitate towards a group themselves (more compatible personalities, work styles, interests, etc.) Another thing that didn't help was lack of space in the lab -- one or two people would be seated in front of the computer doing everything with the rest of the group not having enough space and not being able to learn how to do things themselves. Perhaps this was the result of one or two people taking the lead in the group, with the rest of the group being left behind. Maybe this has changed since -- with more money and more space, every student could be challenged and have the opportunity to learn on their own, rather than having the alpha female in the group click around really quickly because she is already familiar with the software and is too impatient to teach others. It would also have been nice if some of the lecturers hadn't been as biased towards FSL. Also some lectures (cognitive psychology) were really boring.

workshops were to basic, not well organized

The hands-on training was kind of too easy and too less specific to really help, but on the other hand also too difficult if a participant had never used mac or unix language before. However, I am absolutely aware of the problem the organizers had to handle.

None that I can remember.

nothing

the stats lecture

When it was over? No, seriously, there was no worst part.

Group assignment. I find it useful for beginners or graduate students that start planning their own fMRI experiments. Wish the time used to spend on experiment preparation/analysis would have been used for lectures or practical sessions.

nothing well, i'd like the podcasts to be available actually i volunteer to help out...

As with any course that attempts to get a large number of people to use complex software, there were some hiccups in getting things installed / working properly. To the course's credit, though, the instructors and assistants worked tirelessly to make sure everyone's stimulus presentation code and fMRI analysis (eventually) worked properly.

The only thing I could hope for would be a longer program. The field of neuroimaging and its methods are incredibly diverse so every topic could not be covered in great depth. It would be excellent to have more time particularly which could be devoted to applied learning in the lab.

The lab sessions on FSL and psychtoolbox. It's just not possible to learn this software in that short time.

But it was all great!

the end (it has come to early)

physics and stats are difficult topics to convey. however, i think they could have been presented in a more accessible manner.

It's not worse per se, but I think the labs were somewhat at odds with the research project, in terms of time available. Both are excellent things to do, regardless.

I was looking forward to analysing DTI data, so I was a bit disappointed when we could not acquire them.

Some of the lectures were less clear than they could have been and required considerable follow-up to be made useful. However, the fact that this follow-up was made possible by NITP's format is a huge advantage over many other programs.

Statistics lectures.  While this information is very very important, the lectures were confusing.

nothing

Not enough hands on experiences.

They fed us too much. :)

Overall, the labs were not well executed or always well timed.  This may have been a logistical issue outside of the course director's control.  It would have been ideal to have lectures within the lab, so that way we could hear a lecture and immediately run through a lab to reinforce the lecture.

I've used FSL in the past but am primarily an SPM user. I personally would have gleaned more practical value out of the course if it wasn't FSL based. That being said, I thought the program was a useful experience and one that I would recommend to others. And that's coming from someone who hasn't taken two weeks off of work since...well...I started?

the practicals - not enough time not enough time to prep, run and analyse experiment

I was absolutely impressed by the quality of the invited speakers. First class names of every field!

I would come again if labs could be improved. There are many new hot topics in cognitive neuroscience that could be discussed, as well as advances in analysis methods (perhaps this is already being offered).

have a datablitz one weekend, so the participants can learn about each other's research

Although it is not directly related to science, I was surprised and very glad to see that within only two weeks emerged a "group feeling", and also very much enjoyed that all the students received personal attention (both during the school and at the end with the atlas, the photo and the certificate) I think that one of the biggest issues in modern fMRI is to harmonize our methods (in terms of analyses, but also in terms of how we report the results in papers), and I think a summer school such as the NITP is an excellent opportunity to spread that message An it's not just a regular course, it is also a rare occasion to share on similar problems with other people, and to rethink our personal views. I personally think I learnt more in two weeks there than during the two preceding years

Practical session could be longer. The quality is excellent, however the time is limited to 2-3 hours. Would be great to have the afternoon sessions a tad longer.

russ should update his connectivity slides a little

The NITP course was the best basic fMRI instruction I have ever had, hands down. It far exceeded both the formal instruction available at my own institution and another summer course I have taken since. There were only a couple of instructors - senior faculty members, mostly, who shall remain nameless - whose lectures, while very interesting, didn't really seem to advance the goals of the course (or, in one case, to have anything to do with fMRI). It might be better to focus on younger faculty members at the cutting edge of research methods rather than older faculty when choosing instructors...

The UCLA NITP program has truly transformed my approach to research and my skills as a neuroimaging researcher. The program was extremely well-executed and planned such that a wealth of material on cutting-edge issues and techniques was effectively communicated in the span of two weeks. In addition, I formed collaborations and working relationships through the program which have allowed me to continue to build on what I learned to this day. The NITP program is uniquely based on a combination of lectures, hands-on laboratory exercises, and experimentation through a group project. This set-up allowed me to develop new skills in a hands-on manner, to engage in experimental design, to conduct novel analyses, and to immediately implement what I had learned  throughout the program. The speakers were excellent and provided opportunities for trainees to discuss questions and critical issues with experts in the field.

Although I have not yet started collaborations with other attendees, I believe such a collaboration/exchange of knowledge is likely to happen in the future. In particular I think the NITP summer course is unique, since the attendees had a diverse academic background. In my research I mainly work with development of new analysis methodologies. Ultimately, the methodologies I work with should be communicated to a broader audience in the field. Since some attendees came with a completely different background, it was valuable for me to get insight into how such researchers see the neuroscientific field from their perspective. Therefore, I suggest the attendees will be selected from different parts of the neuroscientific field also in the future.

I think the stats lectures would have benefited from somewhat better instruction and perhaps a bit more time, as well as possibly the circulation of some essential pre-course reading material to ensure that all people have the minimum required level to make the most of them.

It might be worth getting people to learn some linux or matlab beforehand, because it does not work studying it in a  big group and it wills ave time! 

The quality of the organisation was superb. This program not only give knowledge, practice, and other thoughts with heavy scientific impact, but also take care of the personal need of the participants:   - every speaker was available personally or virtually during and after the course   - accommodation, food, snacks, coffee, etc. were provided with special care   - there were a lot of "after work social programs" and refreshing opportunities with exceptional quality and variety   - the whole course was serious but also entertaining and rejuvenating

a thorough course. topics were well presented. attendees were well looked after. a overall very rewarding experience.

I've participated in the course as both a student and a TA. The course was even better the second time around, with the students designing and running their own fMRI experiments. That is an opportunity that I have never seen at another course. The collaboration and practical experience in this course is unparalleled.

The NITP provided me with a solid foundation for understanding and applying functional neuroimaging to psychological questions. I have participated in other neuroimging courses, however, the NITP was definitely the best in its breadth, the knowledge of its teachers, and its applicability.

Overall the program was excellent! However, I am not completely convinced about the data acquisition part. In the end, time was so tight that we could not 1) really design an interesting study that was worth conducting and 2) try out all the different analysis we wanted to apply (and produce results). In my opinion it would be more efficient if group members were given a set of fMRI data, maybe acquired with different sequences to see the effect of this as well,  which they can work with throughout the whole course. Practicals may be directly tailored towards analysing these sets using different techniques.

If the program can be extended to 1 month duration with more exposure on student practical sessions.

When I took the course, there was a lot of focus on fMRI analysis in lab.  I think it would be helpful to take the analysis further and spend a couple of days on how to do connectivity analysis.  If time permits, it would also be nice to add a couple of sessions on DTI analysis and tractography.

"Everyone should be required to take this course before they're allowed to design, conduct, or analyze a neuroimaging study." "It increased my knowledge and interest in the topics presented to an incredible degree for such a brief program."

1. The statistical modelling and inference part of the course could be designed better by emphasizing more on imaging data.

2) Level of interaction between attendees could be increased by conducting special forums/session on specific neuroscience/imaging problems attendees would like to discuss.

Significance: Very Significant Innovation: Excellent but it will need to upgrade soon if they want to keep up with progress Approach: Excellent Impact: Excellent

This course made a significant impact on my scientific career, by transmitting a huge amount of information and by starting collaborations that are extremely valuable for me today. I think the course was great, it was a very good combination of lectures and practicals and it hugely motivated networking.

i wrote a letter to Dr. Grant after the course. here is an excerpt: ...I'd just like to take this opportunity to say that it was without any doubt the best workshop I have attended thusfar in my career and I personally feel like in only two weeks time I've progressed enormously as a scientist for having been given the opportunity to attend.  Not only were the lectures world class, topical, and broad enough to make me feel the whole of the field was sufficiently covered and in proper proportion, but the workshops that gave us an opportunity to get a hands-on feel of the tools were incredibly valuable as well. Most importantly, however, the group projects were absolutely stellar in the way they made us apply what we learned to a data set (the design and collection of which was all our own doing). My personal group experience was that those of us less senior and experienced were assisted and coached by those who were, and yet somehow everyone had an important niche to fill and contributed something important. It was incredibly gratifying. Finally, I am certain that both the professional connections and personal friendships forged throughout this time will be long-lasting and beneficial to all involved. I was not personally asked to write this, and I admit I don't often do things like this unless obligated to. However, my experience with the summer school was so wonderful and my gratitude so fierce, that I implore you to do everything in your power to make certain the NITP is able to host such events for years to come.

Significance - The NITP program addresses highly significant and cutting-edge issues in the field of neuroimaging. In this way, the program cuts across a broad range of fields and influences research on a large scale. By targeting trainees and individuals who aim to share their knowledge with their colleagues and future collaborators, and through its novel web-based approach, the program has the potential to widely influence the field. Innovation - The program is based on a combination of lectures, hands-on laboratory exercises, and experimentation through a group project. This novel design allows trainees to implement what is learned in the program and to learn in a highly engaging manner. In addition, the NITP program encourages critical thinking and novel ways of thinking about neuroimaging. In this way, I believe it is highly transformative. Approach - The design of the program, including the web-based program make it highly accessible to a broad audience. The NITP program approaches issues in neuroimaging with an eye toward cutting-edge methodology and an emphasis on novel ways of thinking. In addition, the program encourages trainees to think about not only the benefits, but also the challenges and risks that neuroimaging research presents. In this way, it plays a critical role in educating and informing the users of this powerful tool. Impact - By virtue of its set-up and expert faculty, the NITP program has a great impact on researchers and the broader field. For example, the program teaches novel methodologies, statistical approaches, and fundamental principles of imaging to trainees of all levels. In addition, the program is highly accessible due to the availability of the lectures online, ensuring a significant impact on the field.

impact - it definitely impacted my practice. Moreover, almost all of my lab-mates saw the podcasts later and felt that they studied a lot from it. Innovation - many lectures covered the most recent advances in imaging. significance - since there is a lot of wrong practices in analysis of imaging data it is very important to try and teach young researchers how to avoid the common pitfalls in paradigm setting and analysis. This course is especially helpful since the students can recap issues by looking at the podcasts and since the podcasts are available to people who did not attend the course.

Significance:   - it is the most useful program in this topic   - it covers almost every aspect of the field Innovation:   - every the necessary equipment/tool was provided   - special focus on the newest tools/achievements Approach:   - very practical: parallel "see one - do one ( - teach one)" Impact:   - most of the provided knowledge are extremely crucial in the everyday work on this field

Significance: Since fMRI is a complex methodology which is often critisised for its misuse, it is important that its users understand this methodology on more than a superficial level. The thoroughness of this course achieved this for its attendees. Innovation: a very helpful and practical course.  The most thorough of my understanding. Approach: Very hands-on. This is fundamental for this topic. Topics were so broad that it created a common-ground for researchers (important for collaboration).  Impact: After having problems with signal drop-out in my (and the entire local research community's) experiments, I could approach the radiologists to ask them to change the angle of the slice positioning and sequence parameters that we were using. Scan sequences are usually not something a cognitive scientist concerns herself with, however in this case, it was a huge help to have learnt about this in the NITP course.  

Significance - I can't think of another training program with such a wide range of speakers and hands-on training (and I've been to Braincamp) Innovation - having a project and the opportunity to scan is extremely motivating, especially considering that one can work faster given the skills of other group members (so motivating that one starts skipping labs...) Approach - as described in valuable/worst Impact - as far as I'm concerned, I have both gained an appreciation for other modalities (and am getting involved with people doing EEG, while before I only used fMRI) and also a sense of where methodological development might pay off (as that is my main area of work)

While not everyone can collect all forms of data relevant to their research program themselves, I'm not sure that a behavioral scientist ignorant of how neuroimaging methods do affect their own work can claim to be respectfully employed 10 to 15 years from now. NITP is thus in the vanguard of creating not just employable future scientists, but also ensuring they/we are a decade or more ahead of the curve. Thank you!

Significance & Impact: Neuroimaging is such a rapidly growing and evolving field, so it is important to have a solid handle on the basics. The NITP gives researchers a thorough understanding of the basic concepts in neuroimaging, so we can build upon and apply this knowledge to our present and future work. Approach: Including both lectures and lab sessions really helps reinforce the various concepts learned throughout the course, while the group project gives the opportunity to apply this knowledge.

I felt that innovation was specifically addressed through the many different methods we were exposed to, many of which I knew nothing about, and some of which I had little knowledge and was fortunate enough to hear the experts speak on.

1. Significance - I have been using brain imaging for ten years and I can honestly say that this training program has been the most useful one that I have ever attended. 2. Innovation - What i find innovative about this program is that their focus on training more experienced imagers. It is very difficult to find programs that are tailored to scientists who have been using imaging techniques for years but who still have questions. 3. Approach - Intensive. But I'm not sure there's any other way to do it? 4. Impact - I started analyzing new data with the tools/techniques we were learning while I was at UCLA.

highly significant, innovation was as much as expected, approach could have been better arranged, not sure of impact in future: reduce the number of lectures that could otherwise have been read in a text book and devote more time in the first week to experimental design and modalities; then in the second week deal with analyses

The great significance of the course is that it provides an education in the METHODOLOGY of research in neuroimaging rather than only teaching how to use a program or to do statistics.

Significance: The program is highly significant for neuroscience researchers worldwide. The materials available online and my personal experience at the UCLA program has been useful not only to me but also to my colleagues here in New Zealand. Since functional neuroimaging is relatively new field, it is only by organizing the programs such as this that researchers will get to interact and learn at the same time.

Innovation: The program is definitely "one of its kind" program in the field of neuroscience/imaging.