Connectionists: PhD / Postdoc position available

[Klaus Obermayer]

Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Germany

Technische Universitaet Berlin, Department of EE and CS



Postdoc or PhD Position

COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE


The successful candidate is expected to join a scientific collaboration
between the Neural Information Processing Group at TU Berlin (Dr. Klaus
Obermayer) and the Department of Psychiatry at the Charite Medical
School (Dr. Andreas Heinz) on:

"Reward-Motivated Learning and Memory across the Lifespan"

Goal of this project is to construct computational models of reward
related learning and decision making and to use these computational
methods for the quantitative description of behavioural, neuroimaging,
and genetic data obtained from human subjects.


Brief project description:

Human adaptive behavior is characterized by the interplay between cognitive
processes and reward-related learning. It changes across the life-span,
differs in subjects suffering from psychiatric disorders (schizophrenia
and Alzheimers disease), and is strongly linked to the functioning of
the dopaminergic system. Here we investigate how altered dopaminergic
functioning specifically affects human memory and whether training programs
can be devised to counterbalance some of the observed detrimental effects.
We apply a reward-related memory task to subject groups with expected
differences in dopaminergic function before and after application of a
training program in order to specifically target relevant brain structures.
Data interpretation and the design of the training program crucially depend
on computational models of coupled brain structures, which are used to
quantify differences and changes in behavioral performance, brain activation
(fMRI), and genetic variations in the dopaminergic system. We expect
observed changes to be linked to differential changes of hippocampal
activation during reward-related encoding.


Starting date: Immediate

Salary level: BAT IIa

The position is for initially three years.

Candidates should hold a recent PhD-degree (Postdoc position) or
Diplom-/Master-degree (PhD position) and should have excellent
mathematical and programming skills. Candidates with good
knowledge and research experience in Computational Neuroscience /
Models of Reward Related Learning will be preferred.

Application material (CV, list of publications, abstract of PhD
thesis (if applicable), abstract of Diplom-/Master/Thesis, copies
of certificates and two letters of reference) should be sent to:

Prof. Dr. Klaus Obermayer,
FR 2-1, Technische Universität Berlin, Franklinstrasse 28/29,
10587 Berlin,
email: oby at cs.tu-berlin.de,

preferably by email.

All applications received before September 30th, 2010, will be given full
consideration, but applications will be accepted until the position is
filled.

For further information see: http://ni.cs.tu-berlin.de/,
http://www.bccn-berlin.de/, http://www.charite.de/psychiatrie/home_en.html.

TUB seeks to increase the proportion of women and particularly
encourages women to apply. Women will be preferred given equal
qualification.

Disabled persons will be preferred given equal qualification.