Are you a finishing Master’s student with a quantitative background and are interested in neuroscience? This is your opportunity.

Project: You will be supervised by Dr. Peter Rupprecht and Prof. Fritjof Helmchen at the Brain Research Institute, University of Zurich. The project will be to study animal behavior in mice (left) together with the dynamics of subcellular calcium signals in neurons and astrocytes (middle), and how they are controlled by axonal projections from the brainstem (right). The activation of astrocytes is important for arousal and stress and therefore also for stress-related disorders. You will study the biological principles underlying subcellular activation of astrocytes, building upon previous work (Rupprecht et al., Nat Neuro, 2024). In a second branch of the project, you will study the role of astrocytes for memory consolidation and neuronal oscillations in a joint project with an optics engineer in the lab. Of course, there will always be possibilities to adapt projects to your specific skills.

Scope: You will learn how to use high-end two-photon microscopes to image the activity of neurons and astrocytes in the brain of a living animal. You will analyse large datasets in Python and/or Matlab. You will build models of subcellular signal integration to explain your experiments. You will have the opportunity to become creative and develop new methods for data analysis or microscopy. You will receive direct guidance from an expert on new methods for calcium imaging and data analysis (Peter Rupprecht) and from an experienced and world-reknown professor of neuroscience (Fritjof Helmchen).

Requirements: You have a background in physics, biophysics, neuronal engineering, or another quantitative discipline, and you are interested in performing neurophysiological experiments as well as extensive analyses and modeling.

Application: Please send your application including a CV and your transcript of records to Peter Rupprecht (rupprecht [snailsymbol] hifo.uzh.ch). Please include a letter of motivation that covers the following aspects: What talents or previous experience of yours are possibly relevant to this project? If you have coding or experimental experience, what was your most challenging previous program or project so far?

Starting date: Anytime.