Job ID: 118070

A Postdoc position in Drosophila circuit neuroscience

Position: Post-doctoral Position

Deadline: 30 June 2024

City: SACLAY

Country: France

Institution: Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Institut des neurosciences Paris-Saclay, 91400, Saclay, France.

Department:

Description:

Neural circuit mechanisms of flexible decisions in Drosophila

We are looking for a motivated and creative young scientist to join the Jovanic team at the Paris-Saclay Institute of Neuroscience (NeuroPSI), France (https://neuropsi.cnrs.fr/en/departments/cnn/group-leader-tihana-jovanic/)

Project summary

Making the right decisions depending on the context and the internal state is critical for survival across the animal kingdom. One of the key roles of the brain is to regulate behavior depending on the ever-changing external demands and internal needs. This capacity of the brain to modulate the behavioral output depending on the situation has implications for its organization: the mapping between sensory information and motor output needs to be flexible. This allows different types of information to dynamically modulate the outcome of the decision process. Where and how this is achieved in the nervous system remains an intriguing open question and answering it has been a daunting task in the field of neuroscience. The modulation of neural circuit activity can occur at synapses and individual cells or local circuits and global networks. Studying it comprehensively thus requires different levels of analysis, from molecules and neural circuits to larger networks and behavior. To determine the general principles of thow physiological states affect brain and behavior acrosses we will use  a simple organism, the Drosophila Melanogaster larva, that has many advantages  for mapping neural circuits across the nervous system : a compact brain of about 10 000 neurons that has been mapped at synapse resolution and genetic tools allow to establish causal relationships between single neurons and behavior: we will use a combination of neurphysiology, functional imaging, quantitative behavioral analysis, genetics and connectomics

Please address your application, including in a single pdf of motivation letter (2 pages max), academic CV, publication list and the names and addresses of 2 reviewers to Dr. Jovanic: (tihana.jovanic@cnrs.fr). Screening interviews will be held online followed by on site interviews with the project team members. Start date earliest in July 2024. Applications will be reviewed as they are recieved

NeuroPSI is an institute dedicated to fundamental research in neuroscience at Paris-Saclay University (25 km South-West of Paris). The NeuroPSI research groups address a wide range of questions in neuroscience, from molecules to cognition and from embryos to adults, using multiscale experimental and theoretical approaches. NeuroPSI recently moved to a brand-new building next to the NeuroSpin institute for brain imaging, thus forming the largest neuroscience cluster in the Paris area.