POSTDOCTORAL and GRADUATE STUDENT POSITIONS in BRAIN DYNAMICS at the
Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience, Lethbridge AB, CANADA

The Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience (http://ccbn.uleth.ca/)
has established a new program in Systems and Computational Neuroscience
approaches to studying Brain Dynamics under the sponsorship of a $20M
Polaris Award from The Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research,
to Dr. Bruce McNaughton. Complementing existing strengths at CCBN in
systems and behavioural neuroscience, the new initiave includes five
new, independent faculty positions for researchers focusing on neural
ensemble approaches to the study of brain dynamics. Three of these
appointments have been made (Bruce McNaughton, David Euston, Artur
Luczak…see CCBN web site), and two more are in process. We are
establishing a joint facility for neural ensemble recording, including a
multi-node, parallel workstation cluster, five neural ensemble recording
studios equipped for high density (128 channel) unit and LFP recording
using tetrodes and silicone probes in behaving animals, and a dedicated
facility for immediate-early gene activation/imaging studies of neural
coding („catfish” e.g., Guzowski et al. Nat. Neuroscience 2, 1120-1124;
Burke et al., Neuron 45, 667-674, 2005). Areas of interest include (but
are not limited to) grid, place and head direction cells, memory trace
reactivation and memory consolidation, neural oscillations and their
role in information coding and self-organization of neural systems in
early development, decision making and reward systems, motor skill
learning and consolidation of skill memories, neural network modeling,
neural activity imaging, brain dynamics and information processing in
sleep and waking, and aging of the brain and other conditions that
affect learning and memory systems. A wide range of postdoctoral or
doctoral research projects will be considered, within these general
domains. Postdoctoral candidates should exhibit significant research
experience involving innovative application of neurophysiology,
molecular neuroscience, cellular-level neural imaging, or neural
computation, and must demonstrate knowledge of the relevant literature
in the field and clear quantitative and analytical skills. Graduate
candidates should have had undergraduate training in basic neuroscience
and a strong record of neuroscience-related laboratory experience.
Candidates should send a letter of interest describing their research
career goals, skills and experience, and the names of three references
(please do not have letters sent unless requested) to
bruce.mcnaughton@uleth.ca. Salary scales will be competitive with NIH
standards for postdoctoral and graduate trainees. Lethbridge Alberta is
located two hours from Calgary (see http://www.hbi.ucalgary.ca/) and 90
minutes from the Canadian Rockies (http://www.watertonpark.com/;
http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ab/banff/index_e.asp) and is a safe, family
friendly environment.