Job ID: 114186
Phd position on Desensitizing trauma-induced plasticity using psychotherapy-like treatments in female mice
Position: Ph.D. Student
Deadline: 30 September 2023
Employment Start Date: 1 October 2023
Contract Length: until June 2027
City: Heidelberg
Country: Germany
Institution: Institute for Anatomy and Cell Biology
Department: Department for Functional Neuroanatomy
Description:
1) Project Summary:
Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) facilitate pain chronification and comorbidity with mental disorder. Human-rodent tandem project B04 previously found that ACE-dependent thalamolimbic circuit plasticity drives chronic pain and mental comorbidity and will now address whether non-invasive bilateral stimulation (a psychotherapy-mimicing treatment of rodents) can desensitize thalamolimbic circuits using in-vivo fiber photometry, electrophysiology, opto-/chemogenetics in a mouse PTSD model. In the long term, these insights will be translationally put to use to optimize bilateral stimulation e.g. during EMDR psychotherapy towards improved pain relief in chronic pain patients.
2) References (3-5):
Jauch I, Kamm J, Benn L, Rettig L, Friederich HC, Tesarz J, Kuner T, Wieland S. 2MDR, a Microcomputer-Controlled Visual Stimulation Device for Psychotherapy-Like Treatments of Mice. eNeuro. 2023 Jun 2;10(6):ENEURO.0394-22.2023.
Gan Z, Gangadharan V, Liu S, Körber C, Tan LL, Li H, Oswald MJ, Kang J, Martin-Cortecero J, Männich D, Groh A, Kuner T, Wieland S, Kuner R. Layer-specific pain relief pathways originating from primary motor cortex. Science. 2022 Dec 23;378(6626):1336-1343.
Oettl LL, Scheller M, Filosa C, Wieland S, Haag F, Loeb C, Durstewitz D, Shusterman R, Russo E, Kelsch W. Phasic dopamine reinforces distinct striatal stimulus encoding in the olfactory tubercle driving dopaminergic reward prediction. Nat Commun. 2020 Jul 10;11(1):3460.
3) Methods that will be used:
- Multi-color in-vivo fiber photometry
- In-vitro patch-clamp recordings
- Multiplexed chemogenetic and multi-color optogenetic manipulations
- Bilateral stimulations of mice via 2MDR
- Facial mimic recordings
- Stereotaxic injections and implantations
- Fear conditioning
- Pain measurements (von Frey test, Gait analysis)
- Anxiety tests (novelty-suppressed feeding, light-dark box, open field)
4) Cooperation partners:
Prof. Dr. Thomas Kuner, Prof. Dr. Rohini Kuner, Dr. Amit Agarwal, Prof. Dr. Dennis Kätzel, Prof. Dr. Andreas Draguhn, Prof. Dr. Valery Grinevich
5) Eligible qualifications:
FELASA test can be acquired in the lab
6) Desirable skills:
Programming skills (e.g. Python) necessary (can be acquired in the project) , experience in in-vivo and in-vitro recordings helpful
7) Key words:
Bilateral stimulation, rodent psychotherapy-like treatments, optophysiology, electrophysiology, fear conditioning, chronic pain, gender specificity
8) Enclosures: The following documents must be enclosed with your application as a single pdf file: updated CV with publications, motivation letter, copies of degree certificates
Information for the applicant: For any updates and further information ( for e.g.: change of deadline of the application), please visit the consortium website career section: www.sfb1158.de