PhD Position: Thalamocortical circuits for sensorimotor adaptation in health and disease

The Department of Cognitive Neurology, University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) and the Decision and Awareness Group, German Primate Center, invite applications for a fully funded PhD position investigating how thalamocortical circuits support sensorimotor adaptation in human patients and non-human primates.

Project Overview
The PhD project addresses a fundamental question in motor neuroscience: how do parallel thalamocortical pathways — involving both the classical motor thalamus and higher-order nuclei such as the dorsal pulvinar — contribute to visually guided motor adaptation, and what goes wrong when these pathways are damaged?
The successful candidate will work across two complementary experimental arms of the project: a clinical arm at the UMG, characterising visuomotor adaptation deficits in stroke patients with thalamic lesions, and a macaque arm at the DPZ, recording from and perturbing the dorsal pulvinar–premotor pathway in monkeys performing the same visuomotor rotation (VMR) task. A complementary line of macaque experiments targeting the motor thalamus runs in parallel at the partner lab in Israel, and the student will engage closely with that work through joint analyses.

The project is jointly supervised by Prof. Dr. Melanie Wilke (Department of Cognitive Neurology, UMG, cognitive-neurology.umg.eu) and Dr. Igor Kagan (Decision and Awareness Group, DPZ, www.dpz.eu/dag), in a collaboration with Prof. Dr. Yifat Prut (Hebrew University of Jerusalem). Funding is provided by the VolkswagenStiftung and the Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur within the "Research Cooperation Lower Saxony – Israel" programme.

The research will involve:
Human/clinical experiments at UMG:
•    Deep sensorimotor phenotyping of patients with thalamic stroke, including VMR reaching tasks
•    MRI-based lesion reconstruction and voxel-based lesion–symptom mapping to relate behavioural deficits to specific thalamic nuclei (motor thalamus, dorsal pulvinar), and resting-state fMRI to characterise lesion-related network disruption 
Macaque experiments at DPZ:
•    Behavioural training of macaques on the same VMR task used in patients
•    MRI-guided targeting of the dorsal pulvinar and dorsal premotor cortex (PMd), with functional mapping via electrical microstimulation
•    High-density electrophysiological recordings from dorsal pulvinar and PMd during task 
•    Causal perturbation of the pulvinar–PMd pathway using epoch-specific microstimulation 
•    Advanced analysis of single-unit and neural populations

Qualifications
We seek a highly motivated candidate with:
•    A Master's degree in neuroscience, cognitive science, medicine, biomedical engineering, psychology, biology, physics or a related field
•    Genuine interest in working across both human and non-human primate models — the project is translational, and willingness to engage with both is essential
•    Programming skills (MATLAB, Python, or R) and experience with quantitative data analysis
•    Prior experience with one or more of the following is a strong asset: human fMRI, patient research, in vivo electrophysiology, behavioural training of animals, spike sorting, neural population analyses
•    Excellent written and oral communication skills in English; German is welcome but not required
•    Strong interpersonal skills — the project relies on close collaboration across three labs

 

What we offer
•    Employment at the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG), with joint supervision and full experimental access at the German Primate Center (DPZ)
•    A unique training combining patient research and neuroimaging with state-of-the-art primate electrophysiology and circuit perturbation
•    An active international collaboration
•    Enrolment in one of the Göttingen Graduate School (GGNB) PhD programmes, such as Systems Neuroscience: www.uni-goettingen.de/en/59240.html 
•    A vibrant scientific environment in Göttingen with and a long-standing tradition in sensorimotor and primate neuroscience

How to apply
Applicants should submit the following documents as a single PDF:
1.    A cover letter describing your research interests, motivation, and suitability for the position
2.    CV, including any publications
3.    A list of relevant coursework with the grades

Applications and informal inquiries should be sent to Melanie Wilke (melanie.wilke@med.uni-goettingen.de) and Igor Kagan (ikagan@dpz.eu). Two academic references should be arranged to be sent directly to Melanie Wilke and Igor Kagan.

Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled. Shortlisted candidates will be invited for an interview, including a presentation of previous work.