Connectionists: Post-doctoral research position in neural coding at Italian Institute of Technology

[Alberto Mazzoni]

Post-doctoral research position within the Si-Code EU-funded project
available at Italian Institute of Technology -Centre for Neuroscience and
Cognitive Systems in Trento (Italy)

Applications are sought for a post-doctoral researcher to work in
computational neuroscience within the European FP7 FET Open project with
acronym “Si-Code” and full title “Towards new Brain-Machine Interfaces:
state-dependent information coding”. The position is available from the
summer 2012 for a period of two years (renewable).
The Si-Code project, coordinate by Prof. Stefano Panzeri, stems from the
observation that cortical responses to external correlates do not depend
only on these correlates, but also on state variables characterizing the
state of ongoing intrinsic activity. The project aims at understanding how
cortical state variables influence cortical processing of sensory and motor
information, and how understanding of state-dependent neural information
may improve bidirectional Brain Machine Interfaces (BMIs). The project as a
whole gathers a large interdisciplinary team comprising computational and
experimental neuroscientists and neuroengineers in Italy, Germany and
Switzerland.

The postdoctoral candidate will be working in the Centre for Neuroscience
and Cognitive Systems in Trento (Italy), under the supervision of Prof. S.
Panzeri. Building on previous work of the laboratory (see Panzeri et al,
Trends Neurosci 2010 and QuianQuiroga and Panzeri, Nature Reviews Neurosci
2009 for reviews), the postdoctoral scientist will design, implement and
apply information theoretic algorithms that quantify how neural response
variables expressing both neural responses to stimuli and the state of
ongoing activity at the time of stimulus presentation combine to transmit
and process information. The ideal candidate will have a strong background
in numerate sciences (physics, mathematics, engineering or informatics),
and a keen interest in applying her/his numerate background to making
breakthroughs in the understanding of the brain.

The postdoctoral researcher will be based for most of his/her time at the
IIT, supervised by internationally recognized experts and will have access
to state-of-the-art equipment and laboratories. Proficiency in English is
required.

Salary depends on qualification and experience and the gross salary range
tipically spans from 35k to 40k Euros per year.

Interested applicants should contact Stefano Panzeri (stefano.panzeri at iit.it)
for any informal queries. For a formal application, the candidate will
submit CV, list of publications, a statement of research interests, and two
reference letters by e-mail both to stefano.panzeri at iit.it and  Sara
Maistrelli (Cncs_selezioni at iit.it). The web page of the lab can be found
at: http://cncs.iit.it/research-labs/neural-computation.html

The deadline for the application is May 1st, 2012

The Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (http://www.iit.it) is a private law
Foundation, created with special Government Law no. 269 of September 30th
2003, with the objective of promoting Italy's technological development and
higher education in science and technology. Research at IIT is carried out
in highly innovative scientific fields with state-of-the-art technology.
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