GTReal Workshop: Real-Time Methods in Electrophysiology

描述（由申请人提供）：第二届 GTReal 年度研讨会将于 2006 年 5 月或 6 月在波士顿大学校园举行。大约 120 名不同经验水平的科学家（学生、博士后研究员、教职人员）将参加这次会议。会议将包括 3 名受邀演讲者、12-15 场贡献演讲以及 2-4 场“分组会议”，与会者将在其中讨论共同感兴趣的话题。还将有实践教程。根据提交的数量，可能还会有海报。继 2005 年 5 月在佐治亚理工学院成功举办第一届活动之后，GTReal 将重点关注以下主题： (1) 交流科学成果。由于涉及技术障碍，只有少数研究人员使用实时“动态钳”系统来模拟可兴奋细胞中的膜电导。这些研究人员之所以遇到这种程度的麻烦，是因为动态钳技术提供了在生命系统中测试特定的、基于计算的假设的最佳方法。受邀和贡献的演讲将重点关注动态钳位和神经生理学和其他学科中其他实时应用的令人兴奋的示例，以及用于获得此类结果的技术手段。 (2) 建立开发者和最终用户的社区。在动态钳位的开创性工作十多年后，交钥匙系统还不存在，但几个小组已经设计出了看起来很有前途的系统。分组会议的一个主要目标是根据开源软件开发的原则，继续建立实时技术的开发人员和最终用户社区。 GTReal 的参与者将构成该社区的大部分核心。教程和非正式互动将增加熟练用户和开发人员的队伍。 (3)将实时方法扩展到新型实验。实时技术允许在生物实验中进行前所未有的定量假设检验。该技术的许多扩展将极大地增加其影响。例如，在细胞神经生理学中，应该可以将实时技术和光学技术结合起来进行记录和刺激。实时技术还有可能彻底改变感觉系统的系统生理学和行为研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The 2nd annual GTReal workshop will be held in May or June 2006 at the campus of Boston University. The meeting will be attended by around 120 scientists at a range of levels of experience (students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty members). The meeting will include 3 invited speakers, 12-15 contributed talks, and 2-4 "breakout" sessions, in which attendees will discuss topics of mutual interest. There will also be a hands-on tutorials. Depending on the number of submissions, there may be posters as well. Following on the success of the first event, held in May 2005 at the Georgia Tech, GTReal will focus on the following topics: (1) Exchanging scientific results. Because of the technical hurdles involved, only a handful of investigators are using real-time "dynamic clamp" systems to mimic membrane conductances in excitable cells. These investigators have gone to this level of trouble because dynamic clamp techniques provide the best method to test specific, computationally based hypotheses in living systems. Invited and contributed talks will focus on exciting examples of dynamic clamp and other real-time applications in neurophysiology and other disciplines, as well as technical means used to obtain such results. (2) Building a community of developers and end-users. Over a decade after the seminal work on dynamic clamp, no turn-key system exists, but several groups have devised systems that seem promising. A major goal of the breakout sessions will be to continue to build a community of developers and end-users of real-time technology, based on the principles of open-source software development. The attendees of GTReal will constitute much of the core of this community. Tutorials and informal interactions will add to the cadre of skilled users and developers. (3) Extending the real-time approach to new types of experiments. Real-time techniques allow an unprecedented degree of quantitative hypothesis testing in biological experiments. A number of extensions of the technique would increase its impact dramatically. For example, within cellular neurophysiology, it should be possible to combine real-time technology and optical techniques for recording and stimulation. Real-time techniques also have the potential to revolutionize systems physiology and behavioral studies of sensory systems.