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Education at DRCMR

An education in neuroimaging is challenging for many reasons. Students come from many disciplines each with their own terminologies, and the range of topics and techniques to master is often very wide. We have an educational programme that teaches everyone the basics on everything no matter what your previous training.

 There are a number of problems faced by most neuroimaging centres. Apart removing ferrous-metallic objects from every possible pocket, these include issues as basic as how to understand one another. Part of the challenge is that students come from diverse backgrounds, mathematics, physics, biology, medicine, economics, psychology, and even further afield. This means that most students are good at some things but ill-equipped for others. Typically it’s hard to know what it is you need to know, and what it is you don’t know.  Our solution to this problem is to provide a wide-ranging curriculum that covers all the basic knowledge and skills necessary to follow what is going on at DRCMR and to be able to make an intellectual contribution whatever the topic. Everyone is expected to be able to ask questions and offer contributions in fields outside of your own. The curriculum comprises several modules that most students are expected to take whilst at DRCMR. 

Neuroimaging Foundations

In Neuroimaging Foundations you will work on the most foundational skills necessary to learn the methods and techniques that are commonly employed at DRCMR. This foundations course assumes almost no prior knowledge and teaches you philosophy of science, foundational maths, and statistics, and programming in Matlab. All PhD / Masters / Researchers-new-to-the-field are expected to attend. Accommodations can be made for those with special constraints (e.g. dual affiliation), or with pre-existing training (e.g. already done similar courses), on a case-by-case basis. Neuroimaging Foundations acts as a primer for our methods specific course, Neuroimaging Basics. 

Neuroimaging Basics

Neuroimaging Basics is taught as a peer2peer course where students teach each other with expert help. We cover every major technique used at DRCMR, our philosophy is that everyone should have a basic grasp of everyone else’s research, such that we can critique and think creatively about cross-disicplinary and cross-methodological collaborations. We also have stand alone workshops in Brain stimulation techniques, Neuroanatomy, Basic Neuroscience, Data quality and much else, on a rolling basis. 

Neuroimaging Pragmatics

Neuroimaging Pragmatics is an informal series of lectures, organised by the student group, on pragmatic skills such as grant writing, giving talks, paper writing, ergonomics, and so on. How to give a project presentation, How to write a paper, How to review a paper, How to give a talk, How to prioritize time, How to apply for funding, How to find a problem worth solving, Responsible conduct of research, Stimulus delivery, Psychopy, psychtoolbox, triggers, picolog, button boxes, force transducers, Recording Electrophysiological signals, Physiological monitoring, Data quality checking, Data management and backup, Producing figures in Matlab & Inkscape, Auditory stimulation, Strategies for literature searching, Ethics applications and practice. 

MR Driver License

Scanner safety and scanner license courses are organised by the physics group. This gives students the basic training necessary to work in an MR environment, and the scanner license is the qualification that students need to acquire in order to autonomously operate an MR machine.  

MRI Acquisiiton

MRI acquisition course is our course on MR physics. It teaches all of the fundamental physics underlying the magnetic resonance techniques are employed at DRCMR. The course introduces MRI starting from a level requiring little or no MR experience. Lectures cover MR understanding, acquisition methods and parameters. The target audience is employees and students at the DRCMR but the course is open and free for external participants. A technical background is not required. The main aim is to provide a basis for understanding pitfalls and literature. It covers the MR prerequisites needed to follow the more technical course Medical Magnetic Resonance Imaging offered as part of the Medicine & Technology program at the Technical University of Denmark in the spring, and which is also available for non-DTU-students (offered under "Open University"). Besides knowledge of MR basics, the DTU course also requires math and programming skill.

Selected Publications

Ver Loren van Themaat AH, Hemager N, Korsgaard Johnsen L, Klee Burton B, Ellersgaard D, Christiani C, Brandt J, Gregersen M, Falkenberg Krantz M, Søborg Spang K, Søndergaard A, Møllegaard Jepsen JR, Elgaard Thorup AA, Siebner HR, Plessen KJ, Nordentoft M, Vangkilde S. 2021. Development of visual attention from age 7 to age 12 in children with familial high risk for schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Schizophrenia Research. 228:327-335. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2020.12.031

Taylor JA, Larsen KM, Dzafic I, Garrido MI. 2021. Predicting subclinical psychotic-like experiences on a continuum using machine learning. NeuroImage. 241:1-8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118329

Dzafic I, Larsen KM, Darke H, Pertile H, Carter O, Sundram S, Garrido MI. 2021. Stronger Top-Down and Weaker Bottom-Up Frontotemporal Connections During Sensory Learning Are Associated With Severity of Psychotic Phenomena. Schizophrenia Bulletin. 47(4):1039-1047. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbaa188

Taylor JA, Larsen KM, Garrido MI. 2020. Multi-dimensional predictions of psychotic symptoms via machine learning. Human Brain Mapping. 41(18):5151-5163. Available from: 10.1002/hbm.25181

Larsen KM, Dzafic I, Darke H, Pertile H, Carter O, Sundram S, Garrido MI. 2020. Aberrant connectivity in auditory precision encoding in schizophrenia spectrum disorder and across the continuum of psychotic-like experiences. Schizophrenia Research. 222:185-194. Available from: 10.1016/j.schres.2020.05.061

Johnsen LK, Ver Loren van Themaat AH, Larsen KM, Burton BK, Baaré WFC, Madsen KS, Nordentoft M, Siebner HR, Plessen KJ. 2020. Alterations in Task-Related Brain Activation in Children, Adolescents and Young Adults at Familial High-Risk for Schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder - A Systematic Review. Frontiers in Psychiatry. 11:1-16. Available from: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00632

Maigaard K, Nejad AB, Andersen KW, Herz DM, Hagstrøm J, Pagsberg AK, Skov L, Siebner HR, Plessen KJ. 2019. A superior ability to suppress fast inappropriate responses in children with Tourette syndrome is further improved by prospect of reward. Neuropsychologia. 131:342-352. Available from: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2019.05.012

Larsen KM, Mørup M, Birknow MR, Fischer E, Olsen L, Didriksen M, Baaré WFC, Werge TM, Garrido MI, Siebner HR. 2019. Individuals with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome show intact prediction but reduced adaptation in responses to repeated sounds: Evidence from Bayesian mapping. NeuroImage. Clinical. 22:1-10. Available from: 10.1016/j.nicl.2019.101721

Hagstrøm J, Spang KS, Christiansen BM, Maigaard K, Vangkilde S, Esbjørn BH, Jepsen JRM, Plessen KJ. 2019. The Puzzle of Emotion Regulation: Development and Evaluation of the Tangram Emotion Coding Manual for Children. Frontiers in Psychiatry. 10:1-10. Available from: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00723

Group Members

Melissa Larsen

Group Leader

William Frans Christiaan Baaré

Kathrine Skak Madsen

Show all group members (18)

External Collaborators


Psykiatrisk Center København

Prof. Merete Nordentoft


Psykiatrisk Universitetscenter Glostrup

Bjørn Ebdrup


Forskningsenheden ved BUC

Prof. Katrine Pagsberg


University Hospital Lausanne

Prof. Kerstin Plessen


Erasmus MC Sophia Children's Hospital

Neeltje van Haren


Psykiatrisk Center København

Louise Birkedal Glenthøj


Radboud University

Christian Beckmann


Child and Adolescent Mental Health Centre Copenhagen

James Blair