*PhD Project: Brain Complexity and Consciousness*
*Application Deadline: Feb 23, 2018*
Applications are invited for a PhD studentship to work with Dr. Chen Song https://www.braincomplexity.com/ and Prof. Derek Jones http://psych.cf.ac.uk/contactsandpeople/jonesd27.php at Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), one of Europe’s largest brain research centres, in collaboration with Prof. Geraint Rees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraint_Rees at University College London and Prof. Giulio Tononi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giulio_Tononi at University of Wisconsin-Madison. This PhD studentship offers an excellent opportunity for candidates interested in the broad area of brain imaging, neuroscience, and/or consciousness research, to conduct research on the following topics:
- *Brain complexity* - how different brain regions differ structurally, how their structural differences underpin their functional differences, whether the empirically-observed function of a brain region is what the structure of this brain region is theoretically optimal for; - *Mapping between brain complexity and consciousness* - how different individuals differ in their brain structure, how the inter-individual differences in brain structure affect brain function, and lead to inter-individual differences in perception and cognition; - *Brain plasticity* - how learning and sleep interact to change brain structure and function, whether different mechanisms of brain plasticity may be at play during wake versus sleep, and whether the contrast between the two may hold key to our intelligence and consciousness.
See some of our recent work on these topics at: Schwarzkopf et al. Nature Neuroscience 2010 https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.2706; Song et al. Journal of Neuroscience 2011 http://www.jneurosci.org/content/31/26/9472.long; Song et al. Journal of Neuroscience 2013 http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/48/18781.long; Song et al. Nature Communications 2013 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3201; Tononi et al. Neuron 2014 http://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(13)01186-0; Song et al. Neuron 2015 http://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(14)01150-7; Tononi et al. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2016 https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2016.44; Song et al. Journal of Neuroscience 2017 http://www.jneurosci.org/content/37/37/8929.long; or a summary at: http://www.braincomplexity.com/research.
The successful applicant will be able to use the *£44M cutting-edge brain imaging facilities at CUBRIC* to acquire multi-modal brain measures (structural, metabolic, electrical, chemical), and link the empirical data to theories on brain complexity and consciousness (integrated information theory), sleep and cognition (synaptic homeostasis hypothesis). As one of Europe’s largest brain research centres, CUBRIC hosts:
- one of the only three Connectom MRI scanners in the world, specially designed for measuring brain microstructure and connectomics; - one 7T MRI scanner, two 3T MRI scanners, one MEG scanner, three EEG labs, five TMS labs; - six sleep study bedrooms built to clinical standard.
The studentship is open to UK/EU/international students; it covers the full tuition fee (at UK/EU level) and an annual stipend of £14,553. Please contact Dr. Chen Song at SongC5@cardiff.ac.uk for any enquiries, or see application details at http://psych.cf.ac.uk/degre eprogrammes/postgraduate/research/docs/school_song.pdf.