Post-doctorate and PhD
positions offers on the
Inference of functional interactions from a population activity:
theoretical aspects and applications to in vivo recordings
of a behaving rat
Location: Ecole Normale SupŽrieure, Paris – Laboratories of Statistical and Theoretical Physics (LPS-ENS,
LPT-ENS)
Fields: Statistical Physics, Computational
Neuroscience, Statistical Inference
Contacts: Simona Cocco, email: cocco@lps.ens.fr, phone: (33) 1 44 32 34 73, web
page: http://www.phys.ens.fr/~cocco
RŽmi
Monasson, email: monasson@lpt.ens.fr, phone : (33) 1 44 32
25 89, web page: http://www.phys.ens.fr/~monasson
Starting Date: March 2012
Durations: post-doc : 2 years (extensible to 3 years), PhD : 3 years
Description: A post-doctorate
position and a PhD position will
be available, starting March 1st, 2012, at the
interface between computational
neuroscience, statistical physics
and statistical inference.
The research will first aim to develop methods to infer functional interaction networks from
the concerted spiking activity of a neural population.
In a second time, the predictive power of these functional networks will be assessed
on in vivo multi-electrode
recordings of the activity
of behaving rats. The research
will be carried
out in the Laboratories of Statistical
and Theoretical Physics at the Ecole Normale SupŽrieure, Paris, and will beneficiate from the close collaboration with
experimentalists in neuroscience (C. Bartic and V. Baekelandt, University
of Leuven ; F. Battaglia, University of
Amsterdam, M. Giugliano, University
of Antwerp ; B.L. McNaughton, University
of Lethbridge), in the framework of the European FET project Enlightenment : ÔExploring neural coding by novel optogenetic, high-density microrecordings and computational
approaches: Towards
Cognitive Brain-Computer InterfacesÕ. Potential
candidates wishing to have more information about the
project are kindly asked to contact one of us.
Candidates to
the post-doctorate position are expected
to have a Ph.D. degree in statistical physics or computational neuroscience and a strong
experience in computation/simulations. Research experience in the fields of biophysics and computational neuroscience would be highly appreciated.
The candidates should also
express a strong interest
in interacting with experimentalists. The gross salary level will
be about 3,000 euros per month
(with health insurance and benefits), depending on the previous research experience.
Candidates to
the PhD position are expected
to have recently graduated from a Master of Sciences in theoretical/statistical physics or computational neuroscience, and to be
familiar with computer programming. The gross salary level will
be about 2,000 euros per month
(with health insurance and benefits).
Applicants should send their curriculum vitae, list of publications (for the post-doctorate
position), two recommendation
letters and a motivation letter
to cocco@lps.ens.fr or monasson@lpt.ens.fr. The deadline for
applications is January 31st, 2012.