Dear Brain Imagers,
Please find below details of a PhD opening at UCL for Oct 2008.
Further info here:
http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~wpenny/phd/neurodynamics.html
The funding is for EU nationals only (a non-EU applicant would need to
find additional funding to support the difference between the home and
the overseas tuition fee).
If you're interested please contact me before making a formal application.
Best wishes,
Will.
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PhD project:
Bayesian Modelling of Neurodynamics
Supervisor: Dr Will Penny
Co-supervisor: Prof. Emrah Duzel
This project is about modelling the neuronal oscillations that underlie
human perception, cognition and action. The study of oscillations is of
great importance for the following reasons. Firstly, neurons transiently
organise themselves into oscillatory ensembles that exist for hundreds
of milliseconds, a time-scale that corresponds to the `cognitive
moment’. Secondly, because large numbers of neurons must act together to
communicate over longer distances, the study of neuronal oscillations
provides a bridge between single-cell neurophysiology and systems
neuroscience. Thirdly, oscillations allow us to relate electrodynamic
measures of brain function, such as Electroencephalography (EEG) or
Magnetoencephalography (MEG), to hemodynamic measures, such as
functional MRI. This is because activations in functional MRI reflect
changes in the frequency content of EEG/MEG. But finding relevant
neuronal oscillations from brain imaging data is difficult as these
measurements are corrupted by noise from non-brain sources. It can be
made easier, however, by using our knowledge of how the underlying
neurophysiology causes changes in the spatio-temporal distribution of
frequencies and how they interact. This ‘prior’ knowledge can be
combined with data using Bayesian models. The project will use ‘working
memory’ as an exemplar neural system. The student will join a
world-class brain imaging laboratory with particular expertise in
Bayesian inference and imaging methodology.
--
William D. Penny
Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging
University College London
12 Queen Square
London WC1N 3BG
Tel: 020 7833 7475
FAX: 020 7813 1420
Email: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~wpenny/
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