Applications are now live for a highly motivated postdoctoral research associate to take forward a new 5-year Wellcome Trust-funded project to investigate the precise causal role of dopamine release in the regulation of reward-guided action selection. The post is initially a 3-year fixed-term appointment with the possibility of renewal up 5 years, with a start date of 1 November 2016 (or as soon as possible thereafter). Closing date is 7th October, 2016.
The primary role of the researcher will be to take forward and develop a programme of work aimed at unravelling the moment-by-moment role of dopamine release in decisions to act or not to act. To do this, the project will use state-of-the-art techniques to record and/or manipulate sub-second dopamine in rodents performing sophisticated reward-guided decision making tasks. There will also be the potential to use computational modelling to better understand the relationship between real-time dopamine release and animals’ behaviour.
Candidates should have attained, or be nearing completion of a PhD in a relevant discipline and/or have relevant postdoctoral experience. Experience with rodent neurosurgery, in vivo recording and/or optogenetic tools (preferably in behaving rodents) is essential along with excellent organisational and record keeping skills.
Informal enquiries to Mark are encouraged. More details and formal applications can be found here and on the central Oxford recruitment portal here (job ref: 125281). One other similar position will also come available in the next 6-12 months.