Postdoctoral Neuroscientist

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





Applications are invited for a post-doctoral research associate to work on a
Wellcome Trust-funded project investigating mechanisms of cognitive map
failures in psychosis. The post is funded for up to 4 years.





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.





This role focuses on 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 while
developing a broad skill set.





The successful candidate will have, or be close to completion of, a PhD in a
discipline closely related to neuroscience. With experience in animal
behaviour, neural recordings in behaving animals and neurosurgical techniques.
They will have experience with analysis of behavioural and neural data, strong
quantitative skills and proficiency in programming (e.g. Python) and an
excellent academic track record commensurate with career stage. They will also
have excellent communication skills, including the ability to write for
publication, present research proposals and results, and represent the
research group at meetings as well as excellent organisational and record
keeping skills.





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 accepted.





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 details of two referees as part of your online application.





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