Methods Course
BIGS Neuroscience offers a wide range of courses that focus primarily on covering practical laboratory skills, basic neuroscience knowledge, and professional skills. Topics include imaging, electrophysiology, genetics, physiology, cognitive neuroscience, cell biology, and other essential skills/techniques (e.g. programming, flow cytometry, mass spectrometry). These method courses are offered every year. BIGS Neuroscience students who joined the BIGS graduate program after 1st January 2016 must complete one methods course in either the 2nd, or the 3rd year of the thesis. More information on the curriculum are available here.
Current methods courses
On request, certain courses from other institutes (e.g. BFB) may also be accepted. Please contact the BIGS office with questions about eligible courses.
You can find more information on offeres to improve your programming skills below.
Students, supervisors and BIGS committee members are invited to propose additional methods courses, which may be included into the course schedule after approval by the BIGS Neuroscience Teaching committee.
You want to leave us feedback on our methods courses or you have an idea for an additional course? We would appreciate it very much if you contacted us!
Online Courses
We are happy to provide you with a list of online courses that you can take virtually. Upon proof of successful participation, the course can be credited for the BIGS Neuroscience curriculum requirements.
- Image Processing and Analysis for Life Sciences
- Statistics and R
- Foundations of Data Analysis – Part 1: Statistics Using R
- Intro to Statistics
- Data Analysis and Statistical Inference
Is programming knowledge necessary for neuroscientists?
Basic computer programming is increasingly essential to the study of neuroscience. Programming skills are for instance required to manage the increasing amount of data, to perform statistical analysis or time series analysis, and to process images. We recommend students to attend offered course and encourage them to improve their programming knowledge. Having basic programming expertise will make doctoral students more effective as a scientist, and it will prepare them for a career in an increasingly data-driven field.
We offer our doctoral students participation in the online course “MATLAB Fundametals” offered by MathWorks. Please contact the BIGS Neuroscience office if you wish to attend this course to ask about the further procedure.
Course outline, content, duration, and prerequisites can be checked here.
Note: To see the discounted prices, you must click on the left side of the website in the field (middle of the page) Academic Discount (Ermäßigung für akademische Einrichtungen) and then activate the field „I am eligible“ (Ich bin berechtigt). The course is then listed above (on demand).
The course fee is 100 € and will be reimbursed by BIGS Neuroscience after successful completion of the course. The final certificate from MathWorks must be submitted to the graduate office in order to prove the successful participation in the course.