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Postdoc - Neurophysiological mapping and stimulation of the human brain for memory enhancement

Job Details

Project title: Neurophysiological mapping and stimulation of the human brain for memory enhancement.

Project is carried out within the First TEAM programme of the Foundation for Polish Science.

Project leader: Michal T Kucewicz, Brain and Mind Electrophysiology laboratory

Salary: 12 500 PLN/month

Duration: 3-4 years

 

Project description

The goal of this project is to create a new interdisciplinary group of neuroscientists, biomedical engineers and nerologists investigating the neurophysiological mechanisms of human cognitive processing and memory. Innovative recording and stimulation technologies developed in collaboration with Mayo Clinic in the US will address WHAT memory is, WHERE is it localized in the brain and HOW can we treat it.

Dementias and neurodegenerative brain disorders are increasingly prevalent in our ageing society with significant impact on the quality of life and costs of healthcare. Deficits in memory and cognition are one of the main health problems with very few therapeutic options and limited knowledge about the underlying physiology, prompting a need for innovative research. In this project, we propose neuronal assemblies as a fundamental unit of memory and thus a concrete therapeutic target (WHAT). These groups of connected brain cells are are thought to encode memory for specific objects, places, people or events. It remains a challenge to measure and modulate their activity during memory processing in humans due to their micro-scale and restricted direct access. This project takes advantage of a unique opportunity to record and stimulate neuronal assemblies in epilepsy and movement disorder patients performing memory tasks with concurrent combined tracking of eye movements and pupil dilation. The overall hypothesis is that electrically stimulating neuronal assemblies encoding specific words will enhance their memory by modulating their electrical activity (HOW). Local field potential signal sampled at a large-scale of brain activities with new hybrid electrodes will allow to measure neuronal assemblies at  high resolution to obtain biomarkers for the localization and the effect of stimulation on memory (WHERE). New techniques for modelling the sources and propagation of electrical current in the brain will be used for understanding and optimization of methods for memory enhancement.  

This collaborative project between partners in at the Mayo Clinic, Gdansk University of Technology, Medical University of Gdansk and the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences will not only advance our understanding of the mechanisms of memory and cognition in humans but will also guide development of a new brain-machine interface technology to treat brain disorders at the level of specific neuronal assemblies. Research with patients at Mayo Clinic and in Gdansk will enable direct application of the results to the treatment, which can lead to implementing new therapies for clinical trials. The outcome brain stimulation system will be patented for commercial application in biomedical devices as well as for further studies.

 

Key responsibilities

  • Brain recordings with eye-tracking to predict memory recall
  • Hybrid electrode stimulation for enhanced encoding of words
  • Model source and propagation of the stimulation current
  • One year placement in Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN, USA
  • National and international conferences (SfN, FENS)
  • Clinical research (intra-operative and intensive care unit)
  • Training in the ‘Current-Source Density’ techniques

Evaluation of the cover letter and CV

Interview with the project committee

Company

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