PhD student in Behavioural Neuroscience

Insufficient and poor-quality sleep are major and growing societal concerns, strongly linked to adverse mental health outcomes such as anxiety, depression, and neurodegenerative disease. Beyond general health effects, sleep plays a critical role in memory processing by consolidating experiences while reducing their emotional intensity. When sleep is disrupted especially after fearful events, this process fails and leads to heightened distress during memory recall and potentially contributing to the development of maladaptive or traumatic memories. In this project, we aim to elucidate the neurobiological processes to contribute to the development of maladaptive/traumatic memories. 

You have:

• A Master’s degree in biology or biomedical sciences with relevant experience in the field of behavioral neurosciences, and strong interest in learning & memory research.
• Experience with animal (preferably rodent) research is essential.
• Preference will be given to candidates with experience in (surgical techniques, optogenetics, memory engram technologies, etc).
• A good command of English (oral and written).
• Excellent communication skills (indicated by the ability to write scientific papers and deliver presentations).

We are seeking a highly motivated PhD candidate that enjoys working in a highly collaborative environment for the duration of 4 years during which a thesis needs to be completed.  The candidate is expected to work at the interface of behaviour, neural circuits, and molecular mechanisms to investigate how sleep disruption and sleep loss influences fear memory formation, adaptation). The project combines cutting-edge techniques such as chemogenetics (DREADDs), optogenetics, and activity-dependent engram tagging in mice. These approaches are complemented with molecular and structural readouts such as cFos expression and dendritic spine density, and will link circuit-level activity to behavioural outcomes. 

Research will be mainly performed in the Neurobiology group at the Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences (GELIFES), University of Groningen, The Netherlands in the group of Prof. Robbert Havekes. The GELIFES institute which comprises several other strong, internationally recognized research groups in the field of behavioral neuroscience and evolutionary biology. This project is part of a larger multi-PI programme funded by ZONMW and unites expertise in clinical insomnia, sleep and memory, synaptic plasticity, and stress-memory interactions. For this reason, some aspects of this project will be conducted in close collaboration with project partners at the University of Amsterdam and Netherlands institute for Neuroscience.