Schedule

28 September 2026

Day 1 - Symposium Venue: Boardroom
Time Speaker Content
09:00 Registration
09:10 (5 mins) Michael Hausser Opening
09:15 (60 mins) Tim Harris (Zoom) Neuropixels: History, Status, and Future
10:15 (50 mins) Nick Steinmetz The midbrain reticular formation in contextual control of perceptual decisions
11:05 (20 mins) Tea Break
11:25 (50 mins) Julie Fabre A retrospective, novelty-gated mechanism for assigning delayed illness to flavor
12:15 (50 mins) Zhiwen Ye From Single Spikes to Brain-wide Dynamics: Recording Neural Activity with Neuropixels Ultra and Widefield Imaging
13:05 (60 mins) Lunch
14:05 (50 mins) Xiaoxuan Jia Dynamic Signal Propagation in the Visual Cortex
14:55 (50 mins) Maxime Beau Identifying cell types from their extracellular electrophysiological signature
15:45 (25 mins) Tea Break
16:10 (50 mins) Yong Gu Vestibular and visual coding in primate’s cortex for self-motion perception
17:00 (50 mins) Sam Reiter Exploring the brains of emerging model organisms with Neuropixels
18:10 Shuttle to Central Pier No.7 (Northcote Close)
19:00 (2 hours) Harbour Cruise (Dinner and drinks included - Central / Victoria Harbour)

29 September 2026

Day 2 - Hands-on Probe Handling & Recording Venue: 4/F Hausser Lab
Time Speaker Content
08:50 Arrivals
09:00 (10 mins) Michael Hausser Introduction to the Course
Course content, speakers, schedule, logistics
09:10 (60 mins) Nick Steinmetz Introduction to Neuropixels Technology
NP history, different probe types, NP future, and Sliding Refractory Period metric
10:10 (20 mins) Tea Break
10:30 (120 mins) Instructors Animal Surgery
Head-plate implantation, craniotomy
12:30 (60 mins) Lunch
13:30 (70 mins) Instructors Probe Handling
Group rotation: probe handling in box; soldering/Brainsaw; probe testing in saline
14:40 (20 mins) Tea Break
15:00 Instructors Recording
Pinpoint, probe insertion, recording, mock chronic experiments
18:00 Debriefing
Wrap-up and Q&A session
19:30 Pizza Dinner

30 September 2026

Day 3 - Data Analysis & Spike Sorting Venue: LT2
Time Speaker Content
09:00 (10 mins) Mengmeng Wu / Maxime Beau Overview of the Data Analysis Pipeline
Introduction to spike sorting workflow
09:10 (90 mins) Maxime Beau & Julie Fabre Data Preprocessing & Spike Sorting Theory
Theory of data processing and template matching
10:40 (20 mins) Tea Break
11:00 (90 mins) Julie Fabre & Maxime Beau Curation, Quality Metrics & Cell Type Classification
Phy, Bombcell, opto / cell type classification
12:30 (60 mins) Lunch
13:30 (120 mins) Mengmeng Wu, Maxime Beau & Instructors Practice: Preprocessing, Spike Sorting & Quality Control
Hands-on pipeline practice using SpikeInterface, Bombcell and Phy on recorded data
15:30 (30 mins) Tea Break
16:00 (60 mins) Instructors Practice Curation & Aligning Units to Behaviour
Plot ACG, waveform, PSTH and cell types on recorded data
17:00 (60 mins) Sabrina Perrenoud How to Approach IBL Data
IBL notebook practical exercises
18:00 Michael Hausser Closing Remarks
Course conclusion
19:30 Dinner at Ladies Street Sik Faan Co. (Tsim Sha Tsui)