Ph.D. funding is available through the Alan Turing Centre for Living Systems to work with the Fontolan lab in collaboration with the Khazipov lab in Marseille and the Gutkin lab in Paris.
The candidate will develop a neuronal network model of the early Sharp Waves in the neonatal rodent hippocampus.
More details on the project:
https://centuri-livingsystems.org/phd2024-18/
Information about the selection process:
https://centuri-livingsystems.org/recruitment/Deadline February 15
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Desired profileThe Ph.D. student should hold a Master’s degree in
physics/applied mathematics/electrical engineering/computational neuroscience. Basic skills in modelling of neural/biological systems can be of additional advantage. Of high importance are: i) the ability to work in an interdisciplinary environment, ii) the willingness to dig into the biological intricacies of neural circuits, and iii) to combine analytical and numerical approaches that incorporate experimental data.
Project descriptionDuring development, neuronal networks display peculiar patterns of activity, directly involved in the formation of neuronal circuits. Early Sharp Waves (eSPWs) are the predominant structured activity pattern in the developing entorhinalhippocampal network of neonatal rodents, which is thought to be essential for the formation of the connections between the entorhinal cortex (EC) and the hippocampus. Considerable amount of data on cellular, synaptic and network aspects of EC-driven eSPWs in the neonatal hippocampus has been accumulated recently in the Khazipov team at INMED, yet the generative mechanisms of eSPWs remain elusive. One of the central hypotheses involves the different modes of operation of the early vs late EC-hippocampal network, which is enabled by delated development of GABAergic inhibition and large temporal integration window of excitatory inputs from EC or other hippocampal subnetworks. The aim of this project is to identify the generative mechanism of eSPWs by developing a biologically accurate circuit model of EC-driven eSPWs based on recent data, and formulate specific predictions that will be experimentally tested in the Khazipov lab.
Objectives- Construct a comprehensive circuit model of the EC-hippocampal network incorporating cellular, synaptic, and population data to simulate network activity during development, and particularly the genesis of eSPWs.
- Identify the key network components of the EC-hippocampal circuit in the generation of eSPW via model predictions.
- Test the different hypotheses regarding the generative role of developing EC-hippocampus connectivity in eSPW onset, considering the role of delayed GABAergic inhibition and temporal integration windows of network inputs.
References
- Leinekugel X, Khazipov R, Cannon R, Hirase H, Ben Ari Y, Buzsaki G. (2002) Correlated bursts of activity in the neonatal hippocampus in vivo. Science 296(5575):2049-52
- Valeeva G, Janackova S, Nasretdinov A, Rychkova V, Makarov R, Holmes GL, Khazipov R, Lenck-Santini PP. (2019) Emergence of Coordinated Activity in the Developing Entorhinal-Hippocampal Network. Cereb Cortex 29(2):906-20.
- Fontolan L, Hyafil A, Krupa M, Gutkin B. (2013) Analytical insights on theta-gamma coupled neural oscillators. J Math. Neuroscience 3(1):16.
- Finkelstein A, Fontolan L, Economo MN, et al. Attractor dynamics gate cortical information flow during decisionmaking. Nat Neurosci 24, 843–850 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-021-00840-6
- Romagnoni A, Colonnese, M, Touboul J and Gutkin B (2020) Progressive Alignment of Inhibitory and Excitatory Delay May Drive a Rapid Developmental Switch in Cortical Network Dynamics, J. Neurophys, 123(5):1583-1599. Doi: 10.1152/jn.00402.2019--