Functional imaging tells us where activity covaries with behavior. Causal connectomics asks a sharper question: which circuits, when disrupted or stimulated, change what the patient experiences. This course is built around that distinction.
For much of its history, the brain network revolution has been observational. We watched circuits hum together during tasks, at rest, in disease. The leap to clinical impact required something more difficult: evidence that perturbing a specific network produces a specific change in symptoms, and that the perturbation can be delivered, measured, and refined at the bedside.
This course is designed for clinicians who want to think connectomically and act causally. Faculty will move from the foundations of lesion network mapping through the practical realities of network guided neuromodulation. You will leave with a working vocabulary, a methodological grammar, and a portfolio of cases that show the framework at work.
We assume curiosity, not specialization. Neurologists, psychiatrists, neurosurgeons, radiologists, and trainees in any of these fields will find the material accessible at the introductory level and substantive at the advanced level.
Each method addresses a different leg of the causal triangle. Lesion network mapping localizes. TMS perturbs at the cortical surface. DBS perturbs in depth. Together they let us identify a circuit, test its causal role, and intervene therapeutically.
Use heterogeneous lesion locations and their normative connectivity profiles to identify the brain circuits whose disruption causes a specific clinical syndrome. A causal alternative to symptom localization that converts decades of stroke and lesion data into circuit level inference.
Non invasive cortical perturbation that has matured from neurophysiology tool to FDA cleared therapy. Connectivity guided targeting now refines outcomes in depression, OCD, and beyond, with active translational work in stroke, addiction, and cognition.
The clinical workhorse of subcortical neuromodulation. Modern DBS is increasingly a connectomic procedure: targets defined by tractography, programming refined by stimulation fields modeled against patient specific networks, outcomes predicted by circuit engagement.
At the conclusion of this activity, participants will be able to demonstrate the following competencies, each mapped to ACGME and ACCME outcome categories.
Articulate the conceptual shift from focal to circuit based localization, including the limits of classical lesion symptom inference.
Identify methodological strengths and weaknesses across normative connectome choice, statistical thresholds, and replication strategy.
Screen for safety, set expectations grounded in current evidence, and explain how connectivity guided targeting differs from standard protocols.
Integrate clinical, imaging, and connectivity data into a multidisciplinary decision about target selection, programming, and outcome monitoring.
Move from a published lesion network finding to an actionable, testable proposal for neuromodulation in your own patient population.
Distinguish what causal connectomics establishes, what it suggests, and what remains hypothesis generating, and convey this clearly to patients and colleagues.
We move from foundations to clinical translation across three days. Each day pairs morning lectures with afternoon case rounds or hands on labs. All times Eastern.
Course directors and visiting faculty drawn from the laboratories that built modern lesion network mapping and the clinical programs translating it.
This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint providership of Harvard Medical School and the Mass General Brigham Department of Neurology.
Capacity is limited to preserve the case clinic and lab format. Early bird pricing closes August 15, 2026. Group rates are available for institutional registrations of four or more.
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