Projeto PRR

Sumário

Scientific profile and tasks to be assigned :The Principal Researcher to be hired will have a background in Neuroscience at behavioural and systems neuroscience level.  The research program to be developed will address the neural circuits underlying complex social cognition, using animal models (rodents). Special focus should be given to quantitative approaches to understand complex behaviour that enable a refined study of neural dynamics of socially behaving animals. The researcher should have a track record of pioneering work in the field of social neuroscience, and in the development of novel behavioural paradigms that allow for trial-based neural circuit manipulations, as an experimentally controlled window for accessing and understanding brain dynamics. Techniques like state-of-the-art behavioural tracking based in marked-less pose estimation, optogenetics, calcium imaging (fiber photometry and miniature endoscopes), electrophysiology in socially behaving animals and other state-of-the-art systems neuroscience tools will be used to dissect the neural basis of complex social cognition. The Principal Researcher should address questions of relevance to the scientific field and thematic areas investigated by the Neuroscience branch of CIBB and be open to collaborative research with the branches of Metabolism, Aging and Advanced Therapies. Furthermore, the Principal Researcher should count with an extended network of collaborators that would benefit the internationalization of CIBB.Finally, the Principal Researcher will be asked to lead advanced training in the filed of Neuroscience, thus experience in the development of hands-on courses and advanced course will be a plus. Rationale for the need, relevance of the scientific profile in the context of the state-of-the-art and involved institutions :Social Neuroscience is an emerging field that has been rapidly developing in the recent years. The study of how social context modulates brain activity and how the brain computes social information is a fundamental question but still highly unexplored. Understanding how social cognition is instantiated in the brain is of utmost importance not only to understand healthy cognition in a more ethologically relevant context, but also to understand what goes wrong in psychopathology. CIBB researchers are doing pioneering work in the study of molecular and synaptic mechanisms that underly pathological functions and would extremely benefit from the input of an expert in systems and social neuroscience, that would catalyse synergies between the already well-established laboratories into new and exciting scientific domains. Furthermore, beyond the Neuroscience branch, social cognition is radically affected in brain-related metabolism disorders and has a crucial impact in aging processes. There is a need of this type of social neuroscience profile as a horizontal research line that might foster new collaborations at CIBB, allowing our institution to be at the front line of this new emerging field.