[FieldTrip] Job announcement: PhD candidate on ultrasound stimulation of the striatum in decision-making at Donders Institute, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

[Johannes Algermissen]

Dear Fieldtrip users,

our lab (PI: Hanneke den Ouden) at the Donders Institute (Nijmegen, the
Netherlands) invites applications for a 4-year PhD candidate position in
the field of decision neuroscience.

We make predictably bad decisions. We eat that extra slice of cake, buy
that expensive phone, and fail to save our planet. We aim to understand how
our motivations sway our actions, in often seemingly irrational ways. At
the centre of this conundrum lies a deep brain structure known as the
striatum. It is proposed to drive reinforcement learning, invigorate or
inhibit action, and bias choice, by shaping cortical processes. These
theories are backed by decades of animal studies, yet have remained
untested in humans. We lacked the proper interventional tools until now.
In this project, we will use transcranial ultrasonic stimulation to
non-invasively modulate the 'motivational' ventral striatum and the
'action' dorsal striatum. Combined with novel behavioural paradigms and
computational modelling, we will dissect the role of the striatum in
mediating motivational influencing of behaviour.
In a series of experiments, you will develop a set of approaches for
transcranial ultrasound stimulation of the striatum. You will then combine
these interventions with behavioural tasks to disentangle the function of
the dorsal versus ventral striatum in rational/irrational decision-making.

For more information, please see:
https://www.ru.nl/english/working-at/vacature/details-vacature/?recid=1152032&pad=%2fenglish&doel=embed&taal=uk

and/ or contact Hanneke den Ouden:
Email: h.denouden at donders.ru.nl

Best regards,
Johannes Algermissen
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