National
e-Science
Centre
2003 Neuroinformatics Simulation Tools Summer
Schoole-Science Institute
26th August 03
The 2003 Neuroinformatics Simulation Tools Summer School was held at the eScience institute
for the week starting August 25th. This was the second year the event has been run by the
Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation and it involved 30 neuroscience and informatics
PhD students, postdocs and faculty from around the UK, EU and US wanting to learn how
computer modeling can help them understand how the brain works, at levels ranging from protein
molecules up to large networks of neurons. Understanding how the brain works is perhaps the
hardest challenge of modern science, and progress will require a rare combination of expertise in
neuroscience and informatics.
By teaching computer modeling techniques to neuroscience researchers, the summer school
aimed to help bridge the divide between biologists and informatics experts.
Neuroinformatics crosses traditional discipline boundaries - we had talks from Edinburgh
University researchers from Informatics, Neuroscience and Electrical Engineering. We also had
distinguished invited faculty from the universities of Paris, Duesseldorf, Stirling, UCL and
Sheffield.
The 2003 course went extremely well - with the help of the eScience staff we set up a lab of 30
networked PCs in the Swanston/Crammond rooms to run afternoon tutorials in the simulation
software, and students started working on applying the techniques they'd learned to their own
research areas. On the last day all the students gave talks on their projects, many were grateful
for the pragmatic perspective the course had given them on the realities of computational
modeling in neuroscience.
In the evenings we had talks and discussions in the "Port and perspectives" session, where the
students (and invited speakers) enjoyed a glass of port or whisky to encourage a free flow of
ideas. Social events included a gathering in an edinburgh pub, a ghost tour of the old town, a
banquet at Abden House and an ascent of Arthur's Seat.
Thanks to everyone involved - the eScience Institute for opening up specially for us and providing
food and facilties - the MRC, EPSRC and BBSRC for providing funding - all the speakers
especially those from ANC who ran tutorials – David Sterratt and Deirdre Burke for organising
computers and people - and the students for their hard work during the week.
We will be running another course in late summer 2004... details will be posted on the website:
http://www.anc.ed.ac.uk/school in spring 2004.
Dr Fred Howell (Course organiser)
Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation
Informatics
University of Edinburgh