The school will bring together knowledge from across scientific fields, including biology, computational neuroscience, psychiatry and computational analysis. The week-long event (November 27 – December 3) will combine lectures and practical sessions to explore how recent advances in data mining, information technology and computational modelling makes it possible to uncover unique biological signatures of disease from multi-level descriptions of the brain.

The 5^th School is organised by the HBP Education team in conjunction with the HBP’s Medical Informatics Platform (MIP). The school’s theme is “Influencing clinical diagnoses and treatments by data mining analysis- and modelling-driven neuroscience”.

MIP leader Ferath Kherif says the school will address the challenge of how to make use of the large amount of data available on brain diseases, and then turn this into discoveries that lead to new drugs, novel treatments and, ultimately, even personalised medicine.

Speakers will include doctors and professors, specialising in dementia, epilepsy, stroke and coma, and the workings of the brain, from the cellular to system level.  Students will also learn to use computing tools and data-analysis methods.

Kherif says lectures are kept short to allow time for deep, cross-disciplinary discussions. Projects are central and lecturers will stay all week to guide students in a deep-dive into their field of expertise.

“The week is not one more week in class, it is really an immersion into the exciting and rich world of neuroscience research and the impact that can be brought to clinical practice,” says Kherif.

At the end of the week, each group of students will present their work and answer a concrete question on the path towards understanding brain diseases; One week to really look at neuroscience in a different way.

The venue, located in the Austrian mountains, is a university centre belonging to Innsbruck University and is the perfect retreat for research while enjoying some winter activities.

Positions at the School are still available. If you’re interested in attending this week of rich learning, you can enroll here.

What brain secrets can be unlocked from the huge amounts of brain data, like those from MRI scans (shown above)?

Students (above and below) at the 4th HBP School in June 2017.