Do you have the background to take this class?
- Some basic background in neuroscience/biology is highly recommended. Any class where the brain and/or nervous system has been discussed in at least 3 or 4 lectures should do. If you can explain most of these terms, you should be fine: Hemisphere, cortex, neuron, action potential, synapse, neurotransmitter, ion chanel, voltage, current, dendrites, hippocampus, Electro EncephaloGram (EEG), glutamate, inhibition. If you don't, this is not necessarily a problem... feel free to discuss with the instructor.
- Some solid background in computer programming is also highly recommended. We will use Matlab (similar to R or Octave). The class will not be heavy in programming (as a Computer Science class would be), but one cannot truly understand data analyses without actually doing some! Here is a self test to find out if you have the background. If you can do this , you are probably ok. Again, feel free to discuss if you have trouble...
Self-Test
Generate an array of 1000 real/float random numbers between 1 and 10.
Plot the array.
Compute and plot a histogram (say bins are 0.1 wide) of the differences between 2 consecutive points of the array.
Sort it in ascending order. Compute its mean and standard deviation.
- Feel free to email the instructor if you have questions about your background.