Connectionists: 3 years funded PhD in oscillatory behaviour in Alzheimer’s disease to establish biomarkers, Deadline 31st of January

[Eirini Mavritsaki]

Dear all,

We are advertising a 3 year funded PhD project in
"Investigating oscillatory behaviour in Alzheimer’s disease to establish biomarkers: an EEG and computational modelling programme of PhD study"

Successful applicants for our funded PhD studentships will receive a tax-free research stipend that tracks UK Research Council rates (currently £14,296) and a fee waiver to the value of Home / EU student PhD fees (currently £4,120). Closing date for applications Tuesday 31 January 2017 at 23:59.
This is a transdisciplinary STEAM Project

This proposed PhD work follows high profile research by the University of Birmingham team (Prof. Kim Shapiro, Prof. Howard Bowman and Mr Ali Mazaheri).  The project is collaborative work between Birmingham City University (Dr Eirini Mavritsak) and University of Birmingham (Prof. Kim Shapiro and Prof. Howard Bowman). The University of Birmingham team has access to ERP data of a semantic anomaly and word repetition task (Olichney et al, 2002). In the original analysis of the data Olichney and colleagues, the N400 component was analysed, which is related to semantic manipulation. Olichney and colleagues found evidence of N400 abnormalities in mild cognitive impairment patients, which predicted later progression to Alzhemier’s. We plan to simulate this data and the changes observed in this data by developing a computational model that is based on the sSoTS (Mavritsaki, Heinke, Humphreys and Deco, 2011) model. The synaptic currents that sSoTS contains will allow us to extract the ERP profile and simulate the above described experiment. In addition to that sSoTS model has already successfully simulated visual search outcomes for patients with Alzheimer’s (Mavritsaki and Humphreys, 2013).
The project is separated into two phases: in phase 1, we plan to develop the computational model to simulate controls and mild cognitive impairment patients and in phase 2 we are planning to extend the model to allow us to predict the development of the disease based on identified biomarkers.
The successful applicant will join the Centre for Applied Psychological Research (CAP Research) within the Department of Psychology at Birmingham City University.  CAP Research is part of a vibrant and rapidly expanding research community, which offers applicants with an excellent opportunity to develop their research career. The applicant has the opportunity to have teaching experience, to participate in research seminars and to co-supervise undergraduate projects. The successful candidate will also be expected to attend the weekly meetings of the University of Birmingham research team.

You can find further details on studying for a PhD and details of how to apply on the following link http://www.bcu.ac.uk/courses/social-sciences

Candidate Qualification and Specifications:
Essential
Ø  The applicant should hold a good undergraduate honours degree (First or 2:1) in psychology or related area.
Ø  The applicant should have experience of computational modelling, evidenced by previous work or masters degree.
Ø  A demonstrated understanding of research methods is essential (as evidenced by degree transcript grades for research methods and dissertation modules).
Ø  Experience in C++ and Matlab.
Desirable
Ø  A Masters’ degree in research methods, psychology or computational modelling
Ø  Experience  in EEG analysis

Contact: Eirini Mavritsaki, Ph.D., CPsychol
Email:  eirini.mavritsaki at bcu.ac.uk<mailto:eirini.mavritsaki at bcu.ac.uk>

Best regards,
Eirini Mavritsaki


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Eirini Mavritsaki, PhD, CPsychol
Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Psychology
Director of Research in the School of Social Sciences

Department of Psychology
Faculty of Business Law and Social Sciences
Birmingham City University
The Curzon Building
4 Cardigan Street
Birmingham
B4 7BD
eirini.mavritsaki at bcu.ac.uk<mailto:eirini.mavritsaki at bcu.ac.uk>
0121 331 6361
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