Theme: Initiative

Understanding the brain is widely cited as being the most difficult task facing us today. Ultimately we want the combined knowledge from various approaches to provide us with insight into how nervous systems generate behaviours, and how we can intervene when it goes wrong. More than ever, critical analysis needs to be applied to neuroscience data. This critical ability is an essential component of any scientific training, yet it is often lost during the (relatively short) course of a PhD, where the focus is on generating data. Journal clubs, guest lectures and dicussions will provide a basis for developing critical skills in neuroscience.

Your lab notebook is one of the most important and precious objects you, as a scientist, will ever have. This session explore how keeping an exemplary laboratory notebook is crucial to good scientific practice in lab research. The course will consist of a short talk, a chance to assess some examples of good and bad practice, with plenty of time for questions and discussion. You might like to bring along your own lab notebook for feedback. (Please note that issues relating to protection of Intellectual Property Rights will not be covered in this session)