Research Assistant

How do Cognitive maps fail? And what can that tell us about the symptoms of
psychosis?





Applications are invited for a research assistant to join a team working on a
Wellcome Trust-funded project investigating mechanisms of cognitive map
failures in psychosis. The position is fixed-term and funded for 12 months,
with the possibility of renewal.





Currently located in the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Experimental
Psychology will be moving to the new, purpose-built Life and Mind Building
(LaMB) a multidisciplinary research and teaching facility due to open in the
summer of 2025.





The role will be to provide skilled support for lab members on a program of
work investigating how impairments in world and goal models disrupt planning
and inference in schizophrenia-related genetic mouse lines. Experiments will
involve recording and manipulating prefrontal cortex and hippocampus activity
in mice performing a newly developed goal-sequence generalization task. The
project will integrate high-density silicon probe recordings, optogenetics,
pharmacology and advanced computational tools to analyse neural algorithms,
their deficits and their rescue in genetic mouse models.





This project is part of a cross-species, cross-institute collaboration that
combines animal research, human neuroimaging of schizophrenia patients, and
computational modelling using artificial neural networks. It brings together
teams led by Mohamady El-Gaby (Oxford Experimental Psychology), Matthew Nour
(Oxford Psychiatry), Rick Adams (UCL), and Maria Eckstein (DeepMind/UC
Berkeley), along with collaborators across four continents. The post offers
the opportunity to collaborate with researchers from these groups, providing
exposure to psychiatry, human neuroscience, and computational science.





The successful candidate will be qualified to MSc or equivalent degree level
in a relevant discipline (e.g. Neuroscience), and hold a Personal Licence to
conduct animal-based scientific work. With experience in mouse behaviour
related to learning and memory tasks and flexibility to temporarily adjust
working hours; they will have excellent communication, organisational and time
management skills and the ability to work collaboratively as part of a team.





Informal enquiries about the post can be directed to Mohamady El-Gaby
(mohamady.el-gaby@psy.ox.ac.uk).





Only applications received before 12 midday on 19 May 2025 will be considered.





Applications for this vacancy are to be made online. You will be required to
upload a supporting statement (please bullet point how you meet the selection
criteria), CV and the details of two referees as part of your online
application.





We are committed to equality and valuing diversity.