Wellcome Trust-Funded Project focused on freely-moving recordings in

vivo.
Exciting, scientifically compelling and mature project, with plenty of room for development.
Experience of electrophysiology/neurophysiology is essential; experience in freely-moving recordings is desirable. The ideal candidate will possess high levels of intellectual curiosity, drive and motivation.
Fully equipped lab with ample technical and analytic back-up. The successful applicant will conduct large-scale recordings of deep-brain midline structures. This project is part of a long-standing collaboration with colleagues at Cardiff University: this position is funded as part of a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award.
Some recent relevant papers (and here for a full listing):
- Rahman, MM, Kerskens, CM, Chattarji, S, O‘Mara, SM (2014). Chronic immobilization stress occludes in vivo cortical activation in an animal model of panic induced by carbon dioxide inhalation. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, in press
- Tsanov M, Chah E, Noor MS, Egan C, Reilly RB, Aggleton JP, Erichsen JT, Vann SD, O’Mara SM. The irregular firing properties of thalamic head direction cells mediate turn-specific modulation of the directional tuning curve. J Neurophysiol. 2014 Aug 13. pii: jn.00583.2013. [Epub ahead of print]
- Jankowski MM, Islam MN, Wright NF, Vann SD, Erichsen JT, Aggleton JP, O’Mara SM. (2014). Nucleus reuniens of the thalamus contains head direction cells. eLife, e03075. doi: 10.7554/eLife.03075. [Epub ahead of print]
- Passecker J, Barlow S, O’Mara SM. (2014). Dissociating effects of acute photic stress on spatial, episodic-like and working memory in the rat. Behav Brain Res. 272:218-25.
- Tsanov M, Chah E, Reilly R, O’Mara SM. (2013) Respiratory cycle entrainment of septal neurons mediates the fast coupling of sniffing rate and hippocampal theta rhythm. Eur J Neurosci. Dec 11. doi: 10.1111/ejn.12449.
- Jankowski, MM, Ronnqvist, KC, Tsanov, M, Vann, SD, Wright, NF, Erichsen, JT, Aggleton, JP & O’Mara SM (2013). The Anterior Thalamus Provides A Subcortical Circuit Supporting Memory And Spatial Navigation. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2013.00045.
- Wright, N, Vann, SD, Erichsen, J, O’Mara, SM & Aggleton, JP (2013). Segregation of parallel inputs to the anteromedial and anteroventral thalamic nuclei of the rat. Journal of Comparative Neurology, Mar 16. doi: 10.1002/cne.23325. [Epub ahead of print]
- Hok et al. (2012). Hippocampal Dynamics Predict Inter-Individual Cognitive Differences in Rats. J Neurosci, in press
- Chah et al. (2011). A waveform independent cell identification method to study long-term variability of spike recordings. Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2011:2558-61.
- Tsanov et al. (2011). Theta-modulated head direction cells in the rat anterior thalamus. J Neurosci, 31, 9489-9502.
- Wang et al. (2011). Rosiglitazone enhances learning, place cell activity, and synaptic plasticity in middle-aged rats. Neurobiol Aging. Oct 3. [Epub ahead of print]
- Passecker et al. (2011). Dissociation of dorsal hippocampal regional activation under the influence of stress in freely-behaving rats. Frontiers Behav Neurosci, 5, 66, 1-7 doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2011.00066
- Tsanov et al. (2011). Oscillatory Entrainment of Thalamic Neurons by Theta Rhythm in Freely-Moving Rats. J Neurophys, 105, 4-17.
- Chah et al. (2011). Automated spike sorting algorithm based on Laplacian eigenmaps and k-means clustering J Neural Engineering, 8(1):016006
Enquiries and applications by email (CV, three academic references, list of publications, cover letter) to Prof Shane O’Mara (smomara@tcd.ie).
Further details on Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience (TCIN): http://www.tcd.ie/Neuroscience/