The University of Exeter is looking for a postdoctoral Research Fellow in computational modelling of central pattern generators. This 3-year project in collaboration with neurobiologists from the University of St Andrews is funded by BBSRC.


Vertebrate neural circuits are not fixed into producing a single behaviour. They can dynamically change their activity to respond appropriately to changing situations. This project asks how networks can switch between different behaviours. Specifically, you will investigate the dynamic transition between rhythmic activity patterns in the spinal cord circuits of the tadpole. To do so you will develop reduced and detailed computational models of the tadpole neural circuits that produce swimming and struggling behaviours.


You will use reduced models to analyse the dynamic transition between swimming and struggling and determine how coordination among oscillatory circuits changes at the transition. You will also build detailed models (both anatomical and functional) to determine how the intrinsic characteristics of the neurons and the network properties together produce each behaviour. You will be supported by our experimental collaborators who have determined neuronal properties and network connectivity with an exquisite level of detail. Predictions from your model simulations will be tested experimentally using an array of electrophysiology and imaging tools.


The tadpole central pattern generators offer a unique system to ask how vertebrate networks can produce and switch between different behaviours: they are complex enough to generate different behaviours, but simple enough that we have detailed information to ground our models.


For more information about this job and to apply, please follow the link https://jobs.exeter.ac.uk and enter keyword 70011


Enquiries: 

Dr Joel Tabak - j.tabak@exeter.ac.uk

Prof Roman Borisyuk - r.m.borisyuk@exeter.ac.uk, r.borisyuk@plymouth.ac.uk




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