Winter School Program: https://www.icts.res.in/program/qsb2021/talks

Videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL04QVxpjcnjiFw7wvPZ24v9LRe0smzwXA

The series of Winter Schools on Quantitative Systems Biology (QSB) under the aegis of the ICTP-ICTS Programme in Biology is intended to help researchers from the theoretical sciences transition into life sciences research and experimental biologists with a quantitative background to assimilate theoretical perspectives and methodologies in their research.

How organisms sense the world and generate behaviours is an exciting question that has motivated neuroscientists over more than a century. Neural command for generating behavioural output arises from operations at multiple scales, ranging from the flip-flops of ion channels to dynamics in circuits comprising ensembles of neurons.

New tools to genetically manipulate organisms, monitor and perturb neural activity, and advanced microscopy that enables large scale imaging of neurons in vivo have yielded a hitherto unprecedented quantum of data with high resolution. Quantitative approaches are needed to mine these data sets for generating testable hypotheses regarding nervous system function.

The 2021 QSB Winter School aims at exposing students from different backgrounds to the latest research in systems neuroscience, with an emphasis on quantitative methods and theory.

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Throughout, we will also explore how theory can contribute to a normative understanding of various phenomena, and motivate future experiments. Participants in this quantitative school in systems neuroscience and behaviour will have a broad understanding of exciting questions in these fields and how to address them with modern computational tools.