[Murg] phd advert (fwd from stephen.coombes@nottingham.ac.uk)

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from Stephen Coombes <stephen.coombes at nottingham.ac.uk> -----

From: Stephen Coombes <stephen.coombes at nottingham.ac.uk>
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2005 17:17:44 +0100
To: comp-neuro at neuroinf.org
Subject: phd advert
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.619.2)
Reply-To: Stephen Coombes <stephen.coombes at nottingham.ac.uk>

PhD in Mathematical Neuroscience: The dynamics of branched nonlinear 
dendritic trees

A fully funded PhD studentship in the area of Mathematical Neuroscience 
is currently available within the Centre for Mathematical Medicine, 
School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Nottingham, UK. The 
offer is open to European Union citizens only.

Project description

A single neuron consists of a cell body and the branched processes, 
called dendrites, emanating from it. The tree is the largest volumetric 
component of neural tissue in the brain, and consumes 60% of the brains 
energy. Importantly, the developmental changes in dendrites have been 
proposed as a mechanism for learning and memory. Furthermore, 
experiments have shown a definite relationship between dendritic 
branching structure and neuronal firing patterns. As dendrites form the 
predominant elements in neurons, so dendritic spines form the dominant 
component of many types of dendritic trees. They are small mushroom 
like appendages with a bulbous head and a tenuous stem and may be found 
in their hundreds of thousands on the dendritic tree of a single 
cortical pyramidal cell. These extensions of the dendritic tree provide 
junction points for the axons of other neurons, and thus serve as loci 
for receiving inputs. Direct observations confirm earlier speculations 
that spine heads possess excitable channels capable of generating 
action potentials (spikes). As a consequence signal processing in the 
spatially extended dendritic tree is likely to be highly nonlinear. 
Theoretical explorations of the biophysical consequences of such 
nonlinearities have shown that global signals, in the form of 
travelling waves, may arise from a succession of local all-or-none 
events at the spine heads. A PhD student will consider the scattering 
of nonlinear waves in branching dendritic trees with active spines, 
neural response to synaptic input and the effects of biophysically 
motivated Hebbian learning schemes. This will involve drawing upon a 
number of techniques from different scientific disciplines, 
predominantly from nonlinear dynamics, numerical analysis of stochastic 
and deterministic systems and computational neuroscience.

Further details can be found at
http://www.maths.nottingham.ac.uk/personal/sc/phd.html

This project would be suitable for candidates with a good class degree 
in mathematics, physics or computational neuroscience.

The successful candidate would be expected to take up their studies by 
1st October 2005.

In the first instance enquiries should be addressed to

Dr Steve Coombes
Centre for Mathematical Medicine
School of Mathematical Sciences
University of Nottingham
Nottingham
NG7 2RD
UK

e-mail: stephen.coombes at nottingham.ac.uk
www: http://www.maths.nott.ac.uk/~sc/

----- End forwarded message -----
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Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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