PhD in psychology/ neuroscience/multi-modal neuroimaging

Start date: April 2024 or later
Duration: 3 years, optional extension by another year

We offer a PhD position in a project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Schweizerischer Nationalfonds, SNF): „The extended metabolic phenotype of preclinical Huntington’s disease: Whole body PET studies of glucose metabolism“.

The group of Prof. Michael Orth, MD, PhD (University Hospital for Old Age Psychiatry and Psychotherapy) explores the relationship between brain structure, brain function, glucose metabolism and behaviour in Huntington’s disease, a hereditary neurodegenerative disease. The goal is to better understand what happens just before people carrying the HD mutation develop clinical signs of manifest HD. This can help to better predict the age at onset and improve the timing of disease modifying interventions. The current project is a collaboration with the Department of Nuclear Medicine at Inselspital Bern (head Prof. Axel Rominger), Prof. Jessica Peter at University Hospital for Old Age Psychiatry and Psychotherapy and Prof. Christian Wolf, Department of Psychiatry, Heidelberg University Hospital, Germany. We will examine carriers of the HD mutation who have no clinical signs of HD. They will undergo a whole-body glucose PET, and structural and resting state functional 3T MRI. The main question is whether HD mutation carriers differ from healthy volunteers in dynamic glucose uptake in the brain and/or peripheral tissues like skeletal muscle, and, if so, if there is a relationship between glucose metabolism and structural, or functional, changes in the brain. The project employs state-of-the-art PET and MRI methods, and multi-modal biostatistical methods for data analysis.

Tasks

• Recruitment of study participants (healthy volunteers: HD participants are recruited via the HD clinic at the Swiss HD centre by the PI)
• Generation of PET and MRI data; data analysis
• Publication of results at conferences and in peer-reviewed journals

You have

• A master degree in neurosciences, psychology, or a related field
• Keen interest in research
• Proficiency in German and English
• Ability to work independently and self-driven
• Knowledge in empirical methods and biostatistics
• Previous experience in imaging research (PET or MRI) will be helpful

We offer

• Close PhD supervision by the PI and the multidisciplinary team
• Opportunities for training in neuroimaging and the analysis of complex multi-modal data
• Opportunities for international networking in HD research
• Salary according to the guidelines of the Swiss National Science Foundation (Schweizerischer Nationalfonds,SNF)

Contact and application

Please apply in writing to [log in to unmask] (deadline 15 March 2024) and include CV, cover letter, and references (as pdf no larger than 5MB). Inquiries can also be sent to the above email address.