Syllabus

Course Statements

Goals

AI: Explore the recent advances intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and neuroscience, including algorithms, tools, and theories.
Data: Provide hand-on learning activities based on real, large, publicly available neuroimage datasets.
Ethics: Identify ethical issues that may arise in the use of AI in brain imaging studies.

There has been increased demand for learning about how AI technology is advancing a wide range of problem domains. One such domain is neuroscience. Students taking this course can potentially contribute to cutting-edge scientific studies in neuroscience. While it is important to acquire technical skills, it is necessary for students to understand the ethical implications of their practices.

Assignments

Paper Readings: Since it is a graduate level course, students will get an opportunity to read and discuss academic papers in the intersection of neuroscience and AI. For each unit, there will be a set of papers carefully chosen to represent both the foundation as well as recent advances.
Labs: A series of labs in the format of Jupyter notebooks will be provided for students to practice analyzing neuroimaging data using artificial intelligence.
Project: Students will carry out a semester long project in small groups. Students will formulate a research question, obtain a relevant open dataset, perform analysis, write-up findings, and publish code for reproducibility. Students can choose a research question that matches their interests.

Methods

This class will rely on two methods to create a productive learning environment: flipped classroom and active learning.

Flipped classroom

Learning activities: Students will be given an opportunity to learn the course content at their own pace before coming to the class. Each week, self-learning activities will be assigned, including readings, video lectures, and coding exercises. Students must complete the assigned learning activities prior to the class time. In addition, a list of guiding questions will be given as a part of the learning activities stimulate students’ interests in and attention to the content. Then, during the class time, we can devote the majority of our time to interactive discussions and learning activities to further students’ understanding of course content.
Learning journals: In order to keep each student accountable for their learning, each student will be required to keep a learning journal. In the journal, a student will check off each week’s assigned readings, video lectures, or coding exercises when completed as well as answering the guiding questions.

Active learning

During the in-class time, three active learning techniques will be used to engage students: retrieval practice, fishbowl, and role-playing.

Retrieval practice will typically happen at the start of class. Students will have five minutes to write down key points they can remember from the week’s learning (i.e., readings, videos, and coding exercises). They will write on sticky notes and put them on the whiteboard to share with the entire class. Given the subject matter is about the intersection AI and neuroscience, students will react to pecific prompts such as “What are the key points you learned about AI?” and “What are the key points you learned about neuroscience?”
Fishbowl will immediately follow the retrieval practice. A small number of students will sit in an inner circle and the rest of the students in an outer circle. A discussion question based on that week’s material given. Students in the inner circle will be the active participants, while students in the outside will be observers. Sticky notes on the whiteboard can aid to the discussion.
Role playing will be the next activity. There will be a list of roles and scenarios designed to simulate real world situations where interests from different stakeholder groups may collide. One scenario may involve a skeptical patient and a researcher who wishes to recruit the patient to participate in a brain imaging study. Two students will take on the role of the patient and the researcher respectively. The student taking the role of patient will raise as many questions about the safety of the study as possible, while the student taking on the role of the researcher will try to provide arguments to address the safety concerns.

University Statements

Accomodation for Disabilities

If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please submit your accommodation letter from Disability Services to your faculty member in a timely manner so that your needs can be addressed. Disability Services determines accommodations based on documented disabilities in the academic environment. Information on requesting accommodations is located on the Disability Services website. Contact Disability Services at 303-492-8671 or dsinfo@colorado.edu for further assistance. If you have a temporary medical condition or injury, see Temporary Medical Conditions under the Students tab on the Disability Services website.

Classroom Behavior

Students and faculty each have responsibility for maintaining an appropriate learning environment. Those who fail to adhere to such behavioral standards may be subject to discipline. Professional courtesy and sensitivity are especially important with respect to individuals and topics dealing with race, color, national origin, sex, pregnancy, age, disability, creed, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, political affiliation or political philosophy. For more information, see the policies on classroom behavior and the Student Code of Conduct.

Preferred Student Names and Pronouns

CU Boulder recognizes that students' legal information doesn't always align with how they identify. Students may update their preferred names and pronouns via the student portal; those preferred names and pronouns are listed on instructors' class rosters. In the absence of such updates, the name that appears on the class roster is the student's legal name.

Honor Code

All students enrolled in a University of Colorado Boulder course are responsible for knowing and adhering to the Honor Code. Violations of the policy may include: plagiarism, cheating, fabrication, lying, bribery, threat, unauthorized access to academic materials, clicker fraud, submitting the same or similar work in more than one course without permission from all course instructors involved, and aiding academic dishonesty. All incidents of academic misconduct will be reported to the Honor Code (honor@colorado.edu); 303-492-5550). Students found responsible for violating the academic integrity policy will be subject to nonacademic sanctions from the Honor Code as well as academic sanctions from the faculty member. Additional information regarding the Honor Code academic integrity policy can be found at the Honor Code Office website.

The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) is committed to fostering a positive and welcoming learning, working, and living environment. CU Boulder will not tolerate acts of sexual misconduct, intimate partner abuse (including dating or domestic violence), stalking, or protected-class discrimination or harassment by members of our community. Individuals who believe they have been subject to misconduct or retaliatory actions for reporting a concern should contact the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance (OIEC) at 303-492-2127 or cureport@colorado.edu. Information about the OIEC, university policies, anonymous reporting, and the campus resources can be found on the OIEC website.

Please know that faculty and instructors have a responsibility to inform OIEC when made aware of incidents of sexual misconduct, discrimination, harassment and/or related retaliation, to ensure that individuals impacted receive information about options for reporting and support resources.

Religious Holidays

Campus policy regarding religious observances requires that faculty make every effort to deal reasonably and fairly with all students who, because of religious obligations, have conflicts with scheduled exams, assignments or required attendance. In this class, please discuss with the instructor to make a special arrangement.

See the campus policy regarding religious observances for full details.