Graduate School of health and Medical Sciences

Animal models of disease and behavioral analysis
Provider: Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

Activity no.: 3486-22-00-00
	Enrollment deadline: 12/08/2022

Date and time	12.09.2022, at: 09:30 - 16.09.2022, at: 17:30
Regular seats	20
Course fee	5,160.00 kr.
Lecturers	Ilary Allodi
ECTS credits	2.70

Contact person	Ilary Allodi E-mail address: iallodi@sund.ku.dk

Enrolment Handling/Course Organiser	PhD administration E-mail address: phdkursus@sund.ku.dk

Aim and content This course is free of charge for PhD students at Danish universities (except Copenhagen Business School), and for PhD Students from NorDoc member universities. All other participants must pay the course fee. Anyone can apply for the course, but if you are not a PhD student at a Danish university, you will be placed on the waiting list until enrollment deadline. This also applies to PhD students from NorDoc member universities. After the enrollment deadline, available seats will be allocated to applicants on the waiting list Content The PhD course focuses on how to design behavioral experiments utilizing animal models of disease. The applicability of preclinical models will be discussed, and main attention will be drawn on the reproducibility of symptoms and phenotypes, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of utilizing animal models to mimic human disease. Considerations on ecological settings, genetically modified organism - among these several species will be introduced: mice, rats, Zebrafish and Drosophila - and behavioral testing will be discussed in depth. The most common motor, cognitive and social paradigms will be described and demonstrated during practical sessions performed in the laboratory; among these elevated plus maze, three-chamber test, rotarod and gait analysis will be shown. Examples of mouse models of disease, including Parkinson’s, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Frontotemporal dementia, sleep disorders, migraine and injury will be presented. In the last part of the course, major attention will be given to novel techniques which allow to study neural correlates of behavior in health and disease in freely moving animals, e.g, in vivo Calcium imaging, optogenetics and chemogenetics. Moreover, machine learning-based analysis of behavior will be introduced as a novel strategy to automize quantification and reduce experimenter bias. During the practical sessions, students will become familiar with the DeepLabCut software, which will be utilized during hands-on sessions. Learning objectives Upon attendance to the course the students will be able to: 1) Define appropriate experimental setups for behavioral analysis of animal models of disease. Identify and utilize protocols relevant to study their animal models of interest. 2) Describe the limitations of utilizing animal models of disease in laboratory settings. 3) Define the most used mouse models of disease for PD, ALS, FTD, sleep disorder, migraine and injury. 4) Describe behavioral paradigms commonly used to study phenotypes (motor, cognitive, social) and novel techniques to investigate neural correlates of behavior. 5) Define when and how machine-learning analysis of behavior can be used and the possible pitfalls. 6) Be able to analyze the obtained data - including resize images and videos, chose appropriate analysis software. Participants Maximum number of participants 20. Relevance to graduate programs PhD students enrolled in Neurograd. Language English Course director Assistant Professor Ilary Allodi, PhD. Group Leader at Department of Neuroscience, University of Copenhagen. Tel: 22700083, email: iallodi@sund.ku.dk Lecturers Ilary Allodi, Assistant Prof., Department of Neuroscience KU Susana Aznar, Head of Unit, Bispebjerg hospital KU Debora Masini, Postdoc, Stockholm University (Sweden) Margarita Moreno, Associate Prof., University of Almeria (Spain) Florence Kermen, Associate Prof., Department of Neuroscience KU Alex Walter, Associate Prof., Department of Neuroscience KU Sarah Louise Christensen, Senior Researcher, Danish Headache Center, Copenhagen Claire Meehan, Associate Prof., Department of Neuroscience KU Birgitte Kornum, Associate Prof., Department of Neuroscience KU Ole Kiehn, Professor, Department of Neuroscience KU Jared Cregg, Assistant Prof., Department of Neuroscience KU Carmelo Bellardita, Assistant Prof., Department of Neuroscience KU Santiago Mora, Postdoc, Department of Neuroscience KU Raghavendra Selvan, Assistant Prof., Department of Computer Science KU Dates 12-16th of September 2022 Registration Please register before the 12th of August 2022 Course location Lectures: Maersk Tower, 15th floor; Panum Institute, Blegdamsvej 3B, DK-2200 Copenhagen. Practical sessions: Panum Institutet 24.4, Blegdamsvej 3B, DK-2200 Copenhagen. Note: All applicants are asked to submit invoice details in case of no-show, late cancellation or obligation to pay the course fee (typically non-PhD students). If you are a PhD student, your participation in the course must be in agreement with your principal supervisor.

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