Additional Technical Training Opportunities

In addition, for interested students, we will have several unique opportunities for advanced technical training. PIIN is creating two new research core facilities to service the neuroscience community at Purdue. The first of these is a Cell Engineering core that is being installed in the Bindley Biosciences Center. Jungil Moon, PhD, is a fulltime staff member who is building the facility and who will offer 2-5 day workshops for hands-on training with human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), conversion of iPSCs to neurons, and generation of iPSC- derived brain organoids. The second is an Animal Behavior Core being developed in collaboration with BME. This core will also be supervised by a fulltime PhD staff member. In addition to standard behavioral testing equipment for rodents and small mammals, the core will also be integrated with faculty from the Wireless Devices Preeminent Team (Irazoqui, Lee and Sayles, members). We expect to offer 2-day workshops showing capabilities for stimulation and recording of awake behaving animals. Individualized training will then be available on a recharge basis from each of the core facilities. Third, a new full-semester course is being offered by Asst. Professor Sayles to provide advanced training in surgical techniques. This course is an outstanding opportunity for students in the hearing-research field, offering exceptional training in surgical and electrophysiological methods.

BME 59500 Surgery and Instrumentation for Systems Neuroscience. Credit Hours: 3.00. While not required, this course is highly recommended for students involved in animal neurophysiology. It was taught for the first time in Fall 2017. The course offers students hands-on practical skills in anesthetized animal preparation (adult chinchillas) and physiological recordings, including intracellular and extracellular configurations, in vivo single-neuron recording in extracellular (AC-coupled) and intracellular (DC-coupled) configurations; in vivo evoked-potential recordings (ECoG, compound action potentials, cochlear microphonic, auditory-brainstem response, frequency-following response, oto-acoustic emissions); in vivo neural stimulation (cochlear implant); and quantitative analysis of neurophysiological data. MATLAB is used to control stimulus presentation and data acquisition in lab class, and to analyze data for the mid-term group project and final research project. Typically offered in Fall.