[Comp-neuro] Post-Doc in Neuro-Computational models of spatial cognition (Neil Burgess' lab.)

POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW

Computational modelling of the neural mechanisms of spatial cognition

 

A post-doctoral research position in Neil Burgess’s lab. at UCL is available for computational modelling of the interactions between grid cells and place cells in coding spatial location (see e.g. 1,2,3) and their role in human spatial memory and imagery in combination with parietal cortex (see e.g. 4,5,6). Applicants should have experience of computational modelling applied to neuroscience or cognition and of programming languages such as MatLab. Experience of analysis or acquisition of experimental data in neuroscience or psychology would be a bonus.

 

Neil’s lab. forms part of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (http://www.icn.ucl.ac.uk/), located close to the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit (http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/), the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging  (http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/) and other facilities for research including electrophysiology and virtual reality. For details of the lab’s research interests see:  http://www.icn.ucl.ac.uk/Research-Groups/Space-and-Memory-Group/.

 

The post is part of a European Union grant on computational modelling of spatial cognition, with partners Fred Hamker (T U Chemnitz), Patrick Cavanagh (U Paris Descartes), Pieter Menendorp (Donders/Neijmegen) and Rufin Van Rullen (CNRS/U Toulouse). It will start in March 2013, for 3 years, with starting salary from around £30,000 pa, including London allowance. For more information please send informal inquiries to: n.burgess@ucl.ac.uk (he will be at SfN this year).

 

1. Burgess N, O’Keefe J (2011) Models of place and grid cell firing and theta rhythmicity. Curr Opin. Neurobiol. 21: 734-744.

2. Barry C, Ginsberg LL, O’Keefe J, Burgess N (2012) Grid cell firing patterns signal environmental novelty by expansion. P.N.A.S. In press.

3. Krupic J, Burgess N, O’Keefe J (2012) Neural Representations of Location Composed of Spatially-periodic Bands. Science, 337: 853-857.

4. Doeller CF, Barry C, Burgess, N (2010) Evidence for grid cells in a human memory network. Nature 463 657- 661.

5. Byrne P, Becker S, Burgess N (2007). Remembering the past and imagining the future: a neural model of spatial memory and imagery. Psychological Review 114 340-375.

6. Tcheang L, Bülthoff H, Burgess N (2011) Visual influence on path integration in darkness indicates a multimodal representation of large-scale space. P.N.A.S. 108: 1152-1157