IZN International Graduate Program Practical Courses
Each doctoral student is required to complete four practical courses.
These may be courses that are technically new and helpful for your own and your lab's research (tech import), or they may cover topics that are outside of your project's immediate requirements but scientifically of potential future interest (beyond one’s own nose). Practical courses may be chosen from the list of courses offered by IZN investigators (see below) and typically involve 2-3 days of theoretical AND practical training in specific techniques, such as Ca2+ imaging, optogenetics, electrophysiology, fMRI data analysis, or rodent behavioral paradigms. Practical courses may also be chosen from satellite courses around scientific conferences or summer schools (e.g., scientific data handling and statistical analysis).
For all courses you attend, please provide the IZN-IGP administrator with the course program and a certificate of your successful participation. Also remember to record the course in your blue sheet.
We also encourage attendance at soft skills courses, such as the Scientific Writing, Good Scientific Practice, English Language or Scientific Presentation Techniques courses offered by the Graduate Academy. However, these courses as well as lectures-only courses do not count as practical courses.
Practical Courses offered by IZN Principal Investigators
To enroll in a specific course, please contact the respective IZN principal investigator directly.
Heidelberg University
- Immunohistochemistry and confocal imaging (U. Müller)
- Design of rAAV vectors and demonstration of intracranial injections (U. Müller)
- Preparation and cultivation of primary neurons from hippocampus, cortex, and spinal cord (H. Bading)
- Confocal laser scanning microscopy (H. Bading)
- Transmission electron microscopy (H. Bading)
- Video-imaging of neuronal cultures (H. Bading)
- Electrophysiology (H. Bading)
- Isolation and in vitro culture of neural stem cells (F. Ciccolini)
- Fluorocytometry (F. Ciccolini)
- Drosophila molecular and classical genetics (C. Schuster)
- Associative learning and memory (C. Schuster)
- Functional Imaging – calcium and FM 1-43 (C. Schuster)
- Electrophysiology – Intracellular current clamp recordings (C. Schuster)
Medical Faculty Heidelberg
- Electrophysiological analysis of synaptic function and small oscillating networks. Methods: Patch clamp, intracellular recording, extracellular recording, tetrodes, in vivo recording, advanced data analysis. (A. Draguhn)
- Preparation of organotypic hippocampal slice cultures (O. Kann)
- Electrophysiology: gamma oscillations in slice cultures (O. Kann)
- In vitro and in vivo "electrophysiological recording in the hippocampus (H. Monyer)
- Paired recordings from connected neurons in brain slices (H. Monyer)
- Automation of behavioral experiments for rodents (K. Allen)
- Extracellular recordings in behaving animals (K. Allen)
- Data analysis in neuroscience (K. Allen)
- Preparation and culture of primary neurons (J. Kirsch)
- Video-imaging of neuron cultures (J. Kirsch)
- Transmission electron microscopy (J. Kirsch)
- Confocal laser scanning microscopy (J. Kirsch)
- Non-radiocative in situ mRNA hybridisation (R. Kuner)
Central Institute of Mental Health
- Neural data analysis practical (D. Durstewitz) (Prerequisite: BCCN-lecture)
- Neural systems computer simulation practical (D. Durstewitz) (Prerequisite: BCCN-lecture)
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation in the assessment and modulation of human perception, (J. Andoh)
- Viral vectors for anatomy and physiology of brain circuits (Valery Grinevich)
- Whole-cell patch-clamp recordings in brain slices using infrared video microscopy (G. Köhr)
- Multi-electrode array (MEA) and whole-cell patch-clamp recordings of human-induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived neurons (G. Köhr)
Heidelberg University Hospital
- The secrets of human glioma stem cell cultivation (G. Herold-Mende)
