July 2017 - Comp-neuro - lists.cnsorg.org

PhD position in Neuroscience at the Bio-Imaging Lab, University of Antwerp, Belgium

by Georgios A. Keliris

PhD position in Neuroscience at the Bio-Imaging Lab, University of Antwerp, Belgium The Faculty of Pharmaceutical, Biomedical and Veterinary is seeking to fill a full-time (100%) vacancy (m/f) in the Department of Biomedical Sciences (Bio-Imaging Lab) under the supervision of Prof. Georgios A. Keliris PhD position investigating the role of neuromodulation in learning and memory The goal of the project is to understand the neural mechanisms modulating learning and memory in rats. A multimodal approach and combination of state-of-the-art methods (MRI-imaging, electrophysiology, optogenetics and pharmacogenetics) will be used to uncover both the global network as well as specific cellular mechanisms. This approach will also be employed in animal models of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease. Job description · You prepare a doctoral thesis in the field of neuroscience / biomedical imaging. · You publish scientific articles related to the research project of the assignment. Profile and requirements · You hold a master degree in neuroscience, biomedical sciences, or related fields. · You can submit outstanding academic results. · Students in the final year of their degree can also apply. · Foreign candidates are encouraged to apply. · Your academic qualities comply with the requirements stipulated in the university’s policy <https://www.uantwerp.be/en/about-uantwerp/mission-vision/three-core-tasks/r…>. · You are quality-oriented, conscientious, creative and cooperative. · You are fluent in English and have strong communication skills, both in writing and oral presentations · You are a team player · Strong background in one or more of: imaging, computational neuroscience, mathematics, programming (e.g. Matlab/Python/C/…) will be considered as a bonus We offer · a doctoral position for a period of one year, with the possibility of renewal for a further three-year period after positive evaluation; · the start date is as soon as possible · a dynamic and stimulating work environment. How to apply? · Applications should be submitted to Georgios.Keliris(a)uantwerpen.be <mailto:Georgios.Keliris@uantwerpen.be> and should include a copy of your CV and a cover letter. · A pre-selection will be made from amongst the submitted applications. · More information about the application and the position can be obtained from Prof. Georgios A. Keliris

July 31, 2017

Postdoctoral position: cortical microcircuit dynamics

by Okun, Michael (Dr.)

Applications are invited for a postdoctoral position to carry out research on cortical microcircuit dynamics. Research will involve analysis and modelling of cortical population recordings, focusing on changes occurring in the infraslow frequencies (0.01 - 1 Hz). The position is at the Centre for Systems Neuroscience, University of Leicester, UK. The project will involve advanced computational and experimental approaches - our experimental facilities include in vivo electrophysiology and 2-photon microscopy setups. Additional details on the PI and the Centre can be found at www2.le.ac.uk/departments/npb/people/mo178 and www.le.ac.uk/csn An ideal applicant would have a quantitative background and strong computational, programming and statistical skills (e.g. a PhD in computational/systems neuroscience, applied mathematics, computer science or related subjects). Previous experience in systems neuroscience research is a significant advantage. Start date is flexible and candidates will be considered on a rolling basis, however anyone applying before 14th of September is guaranteed to be considered. Funding for this position is available for (at least) 3 years. Leicester has a large student community thanks to its two universities, and is within easy reach (~1 hour by train) of London, Birmingham and Sheffield. Interested applicants are most welcome to contact Michael Okun (m.okun(a)le.ac.uk)

July 28, 2017

PhD Scholarship on Model-based Cognitive Neuroscience

by Jelmer Borst

PhD Scholarship on Model-based Cognitive Neuroscience The Institute of Artificial Intelligence of the University of Groningen offers a four-year scholarship for a PhD position on model-based cognitive neuroscience. Model-based cognitive neuroscience is the area of research that bridges the disciplines of computational cognitive modeling and cognitive neuroscience. Cognitive models – be it symbolic process models, mathematical models, or neural network models – are notoriously hard to evaluate based on behavioral measures alone. For that reason, researchers have turned to neuroscience (M/EEG, fMRI) as an additional source of information. At the same time, neuroimaging data is often so complex that it is difficult to fully account for with traditional analysis methods. As a solution, cognitive and mathematical models have been used within the analysis stream to interpret neural measures directly. This dual approach, using neuroscience to inform models and models to inform neuroimaging analyses, is very powerful, and has led to the emerging field of model-based cognitive neuroscience (see a recent special issue of the Journal of Mathematical Psychology for an introduction: Palmeri, Love, & Turner, 2017; Turner, Forstmann, Love, Palmeri, & van Maanen, 2017). The PhD position is available in the cognitive modeling group, under supervision of Jelmer Borst. The goal of our group is to better understand cognitive processes in the human mind. To achieve this, we combine computational modeling with fMRI, EEG, and MEG data, and also apply machine learning techniques to analyze neural data. Top candidates will be invited to write and develop their own research project within the general scope of this research line. The selection procedure for the scholarship is as follows: 1. Candidates apply by submitting a cover letter and CV (see below for details). 2. Based on the cover letters, several candidates will be invited to write a short research proposal within the topic of model-based neuroscience. 3. These candidates will be asked to present this proposal as part of the job interview. 4. After the selection, the candidate’s proposal will be further developed in collaboration with the PhD advisors: Jelmer Borst, Niels Taatgen, and Hedderik van Rijn. Qualifications Successful candidates will have completed a Master’s degree (or equivalent) in Cognitive Neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence, or another field of science relevant for the position. The ideal candidate has experience with M/EEG or fMRI and cognitive modeling, and has strong programming skills. Conditions The PhD student will be enrolled in the PhD Scholarship Programme and receive a scholarship of € 2027 per month (gross) from the University of Groningen for a period of four years. Date The preferred start date is November 1, 2017, but this can be postponed to February 1, 2018. Application Please see the attachment for details on the application procedure. The application deadline is August 30. For more information, contact Jelmer Borst (j.p.borst(a)rug.nl <mailto:j.p.borst@rug.nl>). http://www.rug.nl/education/phd-programmes/phd-scholarship-programme/phd-sc… <http://www.rug.nl/education/phd-programmes/phd-scholarship-programme/phd-sc…> -- Jelmer Borst Assistant Professor University of Groningen Dept. of Artificial Intelligence E: j.p.borst(a)rug.nl <mailto:j.p.borst@rug.nl> W: http://www.jelmerborst.nl/ <http://www.jelmerborst.nl/>

July 27, 2017

Neuroinformatics 2017 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on August 20-21!

by INCF Congress

Neuroinformatics 2017 will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on August 20-21! We have an exiting program lined up, you can see the full program and speakers here: http://neuroinformatics2017.org/program/ The annual INCF Congress provides a meeting place for researchers in all fields related to neuroinformatics. Join us for keynotes from top neuroscientists, community sessions and poster- and demo sessions. This meeting is especially useful for anyone who is developing neuroscience tools and methods, working on better ways to handle neuroscience data, and looking for cross-disciplinary collaborations. More information: http://neuroinformatics2017.org/ Please spread this information to anyone you feel might be interested in attending. We look forward to seeing you in Kuala Lumpur! Best wishes, the INCF Secretariat *The International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF) is an international non-profit organization devoted to advancing the field of neuroinformatics and global collaborative brain research. Learn more about INCF at www.incf.org <http://www.incf.org>*

July 27, 2017

Human Brain Project: calls are open to join the project in the next project phase

by "Lührs, Anna"

Dear colleagues, As most of you know, the Human Brain Project (HBP) is a Horizon2020 FET Flagship project with a duration of 10 years. One of the main objectives is to build and operate a European Scientific Research Infrastructure for brain research, cognitive neuroscience and other brain-inspired sciences. The HBP recently opened four Calls for Expression of Interest (CEoI), through which new partners can join the HBP Consortium in the next project phase, April 2018 - March 2020. One of the Calls is about "Co-designing the HBP digital infrastructure for advancing the understanding of multilevel brain organisation”. The available budget of EUR 1,839,424.00 will be split between two selected proposals. The submission deadline for this and the others calls is 30 September 2017, 17:00 CEST. More information about the call mentioned above: http://opencalls.humanbrainproject.eu/forms/16/overview <http://opencalls.humanbrainproject.eu/forms/16/overview> The overview of all open calls is published here: https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/collaborate/open-calls/ <https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/en/collaborate/open-calls/> Questions regarding the CEoI about co-designing the HBP infrastructure can be sent to: codesigning-hbp(a)opencalls.humanbrainproject.eu <mailto:codesigning-hbp@opencalls.humanbrainproject.eu> Best regards, Anna Lührs Simulation Lab Neuroscience Division HPC in Neuroscience Phone: +49 2461 61 8931 Jülich Supercomputing Centre E-mail: a.luehrs(a)fz-juelich.de Institute for Advanced Simulation http://www.fz-juelich.de/ias/jsc Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH 52425 Juelich Sitz der Gesellschaft: Juelich Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Dueren Nr. HR B 3498 Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Marquardt (Vorsitzender), Karsten Beneke (stellv. Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt, Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

July 27, 2017

One PhD and one PostDoc Position in Theoretical Neuroscience at the Georg-August University of Göttingen available

by Tetzlaff, Christian

The research groups of Prof. Florentin Wörgötter and Dr. Christian Tetzlaff offer one fully-funded PhD and one fully-funded PostDoc position for 4 years. Both groups are based in the Faculty of Physics of the University of Göttingen and work interdisciplinary on the field of self-organizing neural networks with focus on learning, plasticity, and memory. The research goals of both positions are to develop and analyze new theoretical models of learning-related molecular dynamics in dendritic spines. These projects will be in direct cooperation with experimental groups from the Göttingen Campus (e.g., together with the labs of Prof. Silvio Rizzoli and Prof. Stefan Hell) and they are part of a new established collaborative research center (SFB 1286 - "Quantitative Synaptology") at the University of Göttingen, Medical Center Göttingen, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, and Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry. The PhD student will have the opportunity to become member of the Göttingen Graduate School for Neurosciences, Biophysics, and Molecular Biosciences. Ideal candidates have experience and interest for mathematical and computational methods as well as for fundamental cell biology. The closing date is 30th of September 2017. Start date is as soon as possible. Applications should be send electronically (preferably one pdf-document) to: tetzlaff(a)phys.uni-goettingen.de<mailto:tetzlaff@phys.uni-goettingen.de> and worgott(a)gwdg.de<mailto:worgott@gwdg.de>

July 26, 2017

PhD and Postdoc positions in cognitive neuroscience in Bordeaux

by Alexandre Zenon

PhD and Postdoc positions in Cognitive Neuroscience in Bordeaux, France Applications are invited for a PhD and a post-doctoral position in cognitive neuroscience at the INCIA, Bordeaux, France. The 3-year positions are funded by the Junior Chair from IDEX Bordeaux. The successful candidates will work on the theoretical development and experimental validation of a neurobiological model of cognitive effort and cognitive fatigue, based on information theory. This work will involve behavioural experiments, neuroimaging and computational modelling. Requirements: Postdoctoral applicants must hold a PhD in neuroscience with strong experience in computational modelling and/or neuroimaging. PhD applicants must hold a Master's degree in a neuroscience-related field (e.g. medicine, biology, psychology, ...). Previous experience in research and data analysis will be valued. Expected start date: Autumn 2017 Send applications with CV, 2 letters of recommendation and motivation letter to alexandre.zenon(a)u-bordeaux.fr<mailto:alexandre.zenon@u-bordeaux.fr>

July 25, 2017

Please post: postdoctoral fellowship available

by Andy Edwards

Postdoctoral fellowship in computational neuroscience: Simula, Oslo Simula Research Laboratory is pleased to offer a 4-year postdoctoral fellowship in computational modelling of multiscale processes in neuroplasticity. Please see the full position description and requirements at our applications page: https://www.simula.no/about/job/postdoctoral-fellowship-neur al-systems-modeling Andy Edwards Senior Scientist Simula Research Laboratory

July 25, 2017

MBCC 2017: ICCV Workshop on Mutual Benefits of Cognitive and Computer Vision - Call For Papers

by Christopher Kanan

## CALL FOR PAPERS (CfP) ## ICCV International Workshop on ‘Mutual Benefits of Cognitive and Computer Vision (MBCC)’ 29 October 2017 Venice, Italy (https://sites.google.com/site/mbcc2017w/home) _____________ Aim and Scope As researchers working at the intersection of biological and machine vision, we have noticed an increasing interest in both communities to understand and improve on each other’s insights. Recent advances in machine learning (especially deep learning) have led to unprecedented improvements in computer vision. These deep learning algorithms have revolutionized computer vision, and now rival humans at some narrowly defined tasks such as object recognition (e.g., the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge). In spite of these advances, the existence of adversarial images (some of which have perturbations imperceptible to humans) and rather poor generalizability across datasets point out the flaws present in these networks. On the other hand, the human visual system remains highly efficient at solving real-world tasks and capable of solving many visual tasks. We believe that the time is ripe to have extended discussions and interactions between researchers from both fields in order to steer future research in more fruitful directions. This workshop will compare human vision to state-of-the-art machine perception methods, with specific emphasis on deep learning models and architectures. Our workshop will address many important questions. They include: 1) What are the representational differences between human and machine perception? 2) What makes human vision so effective? and 3) What can we learn from human vision research? Addressing these questions is not as difficult as previously thought due to technological advancements in both computational science and neuroscience. We can now measure human behavior precisely and collect huge amounts of neurophysiological data using EEG and fMRI. This places us in a unique position to compare state-of-the-art computer vision models and human behavioral/neural data, which was impossible to do a few years ago. However, this advantage also comes with its own set of problems: Which task/metric to use for comparison? What are the representational similarities? How different are the computations in a biological visual system when compared to an artificial vision system? How does human vision achieve invariance? This workshop is a great opportunity for researchers working on human and/or machine perception to come together and discuss plausible solutions to some of the aforementioned problems. ______ Topics for submission include but are not limited to: - architectures for processing visual information in the human brain and computer vision (e.g. feedforward vs feedback, shallow vs deep networks, residual, recurrent, etc) - limitations of existing computer vision/deep learning systems compared to human vision - learning rules employed in computer vision and by the brain (e.g. unsupervised/semi-supervised learning, Hebb rule, Spike timing dependent plasticity) - representations/features in humans and computer vision - tasks/metrics to compare human and computer vision (e.g. eye fixation, reaction time, rapid categorization, visual search) - new benchmarks (e.g. datasets) - generalizability of machine representation to other tasks - new techniques to measure and analyze human psychophysics and neural signals - the problem on invariant learning - conducting large-scale behavioral and physiological experiments (e.g., fMRI, cell recording) ______________ Invited Speakers We have invited leading researchers from both Cognitive Science and Computer Vision to inspire discussions and collaborations. 1. Michael Tarr, Carnegie Mellon University 2. Davide Zoccolan, International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Trieste, Italy ___________________ Submission Guidelines We are inviting both full paper (5-8 pages) and extended abstract (2-4 pages) submissions to the workshop. Submitted papers must follow the ICCV paper format and guidelines (available on the ICCV 2017 webpage). All submissions will be handled via the CMT website: https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/MBCC2017/ Full papers: The submitted papers should have a maximum length of 8 pages, including figures and tables; additional pages must contain only cited references. The review will be double-blind. Please make sure all authors or references to authors are anonymized. Full paper submissions must not have been published before. Extended abstracts: We invite submissions of extended abstracts of ongoing or already published work as well as demos or prototype systems (ICCV format). Authors are given the opportunity to present their work to the right audience. The review will be single-blind. ______________ Important Dates Full Paper submission: August 1st, 2017 Extended Abstract submission: August 5th, 2017 Notification of acceptance: August 15th, 2017 Camera-ready paper due: September 30th, 2017 Workshop: October 29th, 2017 (Morning Session) _____________________________ Workshop Organizing Committee Ali Borji, University of Central Florida Pramod RT, Indian Institute of Science Elissa Aminoff, Fordham University Christopher Kanan, Rochester Institute of Technology _______ Contact mbccw.iccv2017(a)gmail.com

July 23, 2017

BCBT2017 Summer School. Registration deadline August 1st!

by BCBT, Bústia Compartida

*Registration deadline postponed: 1 August 2017* For more information on how to apply, please go to BCBT2017-Eventum UPF <https://eventum.upf.edu/9240/detail/bcbt-2017.html> ------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------ *Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology Summer School -BCBT2017* University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. 28 August - 8 September 2017 BCBT2017-Eventum UPF <https://eventum.upf.edu/9240/detail/bcbt-2017.html> Join us for the 10th edition of *"Barcelona Cognition, Brain and Technology summer school - BCBT2017 *" be held 28 August-8 September 2017 in Barcelona, Spain. The BCBT summer school is positioned at the interface between biology and future and emerging technologies with an emphasis on the principles underlying brains and their translation to avant-garde technologies. BCBT promotes a shared systems-level understanding of the functional architecture of the brain and its possible emulation in artificial systems. The summer school has been part of a series of events organized by the European coordination action Convergent Science Network of Biomimetics and Neurotechnology (*http://csnetwork.eu/ <http://csnetwork.eu/>*). This year the school is supported by the ERC project CDAC <http://specs.upf.edu/projects/2810> that investigates the role of consciousness in adaptive behavior combining empirical, computational and robot-based approach. BCBT is also supported by EPISENSE <https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/sp3>, a subproject of the Human Brain Project <https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/>(HBP) that investigates brain mechanisms of perception and memory. This is the 10th year of BCBT, which has run with great success in previous years thanks to an excellent line-up of outstanding speakers (see bcbt.upf.edu for previous editions of the school). BCBT lectures <https://www.youtube.com/user/ConvergentScienceNw/playlists> are available online with the BCBT *Podcast interviews *with many of the BCBT speakers. BCBT caters to students and researchers involved in projects that are in the ambit of “BIO-ICT convergence”, "Brain Inspired ICT", “Cognitive systems-robotics”, “Cognitive and neural systems”, “Foundations of social cognition”. BCBT will offer up to 30 student slots for the practical workshops, while as many researchers can register to attend the presentations and discussion sessions as they are interested. The atmosphere of the BCBT summer school is informal with the goal to stimulate in-depth discussion. There are 1 or 2 presentations in the morning, with the afternoons reserved for tutorials and projects for student participants and road-mapping workshops or further discussion for senior scientists. For the 2017 edition, we plan a *1st week* of the school addressing *Neural basis of Consciousness *while the *2nd week* will include presentations aimed at the investigation of *Evolutionary and Developmental aspects of nervous systems and behavior.* Friday 8 is reserved for the presentation of the student projects to which everybody is invited. *BCBT is organized by* Paul Verschure, ICREA and University Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, ES, Tony Prescott, Sheffield University, UK Anna Mura, University Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, ES

July 23, 2017