Course Description

This course covers concepts and applications of quantitative methods for analyzing brain structure with a focus on stereological methods.  Stereology is a branch of applied mathematics that permits the calculation of three-dimensional parameters of a structure based on data collected from flat sections, usually histological sections.  Participants will learn and apply, in hands-on work, concepts, sampling strategies and calculations for unbiased measures of the density, number, volume, surface area and length of various brain components.
 

Exercises. Weekly exercises are intended to provide you with hands-on application of the techniques and calculations.   Exercises are due 1 week after they are first assigned, unless otherwise specified.  Students are encouraged to work together on these exercises, but each student must collect and submit his/her own data set and calculations.

 Optional Paper Presentations.  Within the first 2 weeks, students may sign up for a day to present and lead the discussion of one of the required or supplementary readings (~15 min).  Substitution of another paper that deals with the same topic is permitted with permission and is encouraged if a suitable paper related to your research topic can be found.  Excluding exercises 1-3, you are permitted to opt out of two of the 8 exercises if you choose to make a paper presentation.

 Projects.  For projects, you are to take some set of tissue samples and apply at least 2 of the stereological procedures you have learned in class to obtain an answer to a meaningful question about some brain (or other tissue) component.  The tissue used can be from your own experiments, may be tissue that you generate for the class, can be borrowed from a lab-mate or another lab, or may be supplied to you by the instructor.  If you need it, you will be given guidance in histological processing procedures.  For your project presentations and write-ups you should describe your question, detail the methods that you used, including the formulae for calculations, describe your results, justify your interpretations, describe any potential flaws in the experimental methods and justify why they do not compromise your interpretation of the data.  That is, you are not judged by how rigorously you adhere to ideal stereological procedures, but how well you identify and justify when you depart from what stereologists would call ideal.  Your write-ups should include an appendix containing the collected data sets and calculations.  If you desire, these may be in the form of printouts of spread-sheets and statistical software command files provided that they have labels and any other descriptions needed to make them comprehensible.

Projects can be turned in anytime during the semester, but must be in by 5:00 pm on Weds December 12.  The last 2 classes are reserved for project presentations, but you may also arrange to do your presentation earlier in the semester. 

Grades.  All together, exercises are worth 30%, project presentations are worth 20%, project write-ups are worth 35% and class participation is 15% of your final grade.

 Last Updated: 08/27/07