MEG@McGill Training Program: March 16-20th

Full week training to learn everything about MEG: paradigm design, acquisition and advanced data analysis.

General information

Where: MEG lab, Montreal Neurological Institute, 3801 University St

When: March 16-20th

Target audience: Students, researchers and staff with no prior experience with MEG.

Participation fees:

• 5-day course: McGillians: $1,000 - Externals: $1,200

• First day only: McGillians: $50 - Externals: $100

Maximum attendance:

• 5-day course: 12 (3 groups x 4 people)

• First day only: 100

Program overview

• Day 1: MEG/EEG imaging crash course

  • Principles: Physics, instrumentation and signal formation, neural oscillations
  • Typical paradigm designs
  • Signal analysis: Imaging, signal detection, functional connectivity

• Day 2: Practical paradigm design

• Day 3: Data collection

• Day 4: Hands-on analysis of collected data using Brainstorm

• Day 5: Advanced data analysis and group presentations

Detailed program

Day 1: Lectures

• 08:00-09:00: Breakfast, welcome, laptop clinic

• 09:00-13:00: Foundations of MEG/EEG

  • The physiological origins of scalp signals (Baillet)

  • Q&A, coffee (30 mins)

  • Spectral analysis: Fourier, wavelet decompositions, Hilbert tranforms (Donhauser)

  • Q&A, coffee (30 mins)

  • Neural oscillations (Jerbi)

• 13:00-14:00: Lunch break

• 14:00-18:00: Signal analysis

  • Basic signal extraction: ERP/ERFs (Dery, Moreau)
  • Imaging: forward and inverse modelling (Baillet)

  • Q&A, coffee (30 mins)

  • Cross-frequency coupling: methods & what do we know? (Samiee)

  • Q&A, coffee (30 mins)

  • Methods for detecting inter-regional interactions (Niso-Gallan)

Day 2: MEG by example: Design your first experiment

• 08:30-12:30: MEG by example

  • Instrumentation & environment (Bock)

  • Q&A, coffee (30 mins)

  • Decision-making (Avi)
  • Memory - monitoring (Autran)
  • Steady-state visual responses (Chadnova)
  • Induced visual gamma (Donhauser)

  • Q&A, coffee (30 mins)

  • Speech (Donhauser)
  • Auditory processes (Albouy)
  • Dynamics of multimodal interactions (Morillon)

  • Real-time imaging & biofeedback, neurofeedback (Samiee)

• 12:30-13:30: Lunch break

• 13:30-17:30: Design your first experiment

  • Form focus groups (vision, attention, memory, sensori-motor, etc.)
  • Brainstorm and design your first MEG study
  • Use Psychtoolbox script templates

  • Test in McGill MEG suite

Day 3: Data collection in practice

• 08:00-12:00: Acquisition groups 1&2

• 13:00-14:00: Acquisition groups 3&4

• Launch Freesurfer pipeline on acquired MRI volumes overnight

Day 4: Hands-on analysis of collected data using Brainstorm

• 08:00-18:00: Each group will be assisted by an MEG expert to do pre-processing/basic analysis on the data they collected.

Day 5: Advanced data analysis and group presentations

• 08:00-12:00: Advanced analysis: Each group will be assisted by an MEG expert
  Prepare presentations

• 13:00-15:00: Data analysis competition
  Each group presents to the MEG@McGill Team (30 mins each)
  Best narrative & analysis wins special prize!

• 15:00-20:00: Montreal 5@7 and dinner