PRE2023-Reinforcement learning as a path to understanding declarative memories-PID2022-140235NB-I00

We are seeking a Ph.D. student to study how long-term memories are encoded in the hippocampus and memory-related cortical areas. The PhD project will be developed in the group of Dr. Pablo Jercog at the Cajal Institute, part of the Spanish National Research Council CSIC (https://cajal.csic.es/en/home/) in Madrid, Spain. The project will try to achieve the goals proposed within the project called “reinforcement learning as a path to understanding declarative memories”, (RL4SEM) recently founded by the Spanish research agency (AEI). The main focus of the project will utilize newly developed behavioral tasks (Morales et al., 2020, Zamani et al. 2022) that allow observing behaviorally and in neuronal activity, using memories of different time scales in mice solving a goal-oriented task to seek reward. The lab has recently developed in collaboration with Peter Latham (UCL) and Yashar Ahmadian (Cambridge), a new formalism to understand how memories are encoded in neuronal activity. For related publications see the Google Scholar list. Candidates will gain expertise in rodent behavior, calcium imaging, and electrophysiology in freely moving animals. Candidates will also learn to use machine-learning tools to analyze behavior and neuronal activity. For this reason, the candidate should have proficient quantitative skills (data processing, analysis, and programming, e.g. in Matlab/Python) and a strong background in applied maths.