The Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour currently has an opening at the Centre for Cognition for a PhD student within the project “Neuropharmacology of social adaptive behaviour”. This project will focus on the role of the neuropeptide oxytocin in efficient social adaptive behaviour in healthy volunteers and its relation to disturbed social cognitive processing in psychiatric disorders. Behavioural and neuroimaging (EEG, fMRI) experiments are currently planned and resources are available to incorporate additional methods such as MEG and eye-tracking. The PhD student will work within a young, interdisciplinary team, which is embedded in an internationally well-established research unit. We offer a unique, multidisciplinary working and learning environment with possibilities to develop expertise in a diversity of research areas and techniques. The project not only incorporates well-established social cognition tasks (e.g. emotion recognition, social decision making), but will specifically focus on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying ‘social adaptive behaviour’. In social interactions, individuals not only have to plan and monitor their own actions and errors, but they also have to keep track of and anticipate the actions of the person they are interacting with. Moreover, they have to flexibly adapt their behaviour to the actions of their co-actors. The present research will investigate this form of adaptive behaviour using a novel combination of methods and techniques, including EEG, fMRI, psychopharmacology, and clinical populations.

Doctorate
- University graduate with a Master’s degree (or equivalent) in experimental/cognitive psychology or related cognitive neuroscience fields - Demonstrated interest in and qualification for scientific research - The ability to work in an interdisciplinary team of psychologists, psychiatrists and cognitive neuroscientists in an international context - Proficiency in English - Excellent writing skills - Experience with one or more of the following is a plus: - Behavioural experiments (in clinical populations) - Neuroimaging (EEG and/or fMRI) - Psychopharmacological experiments - Programming in presentation and/or Matlab (SPM)

Radboud University Nijmegen Faculty of Social Sciences

Strategically located in Europe, Radboud University Nijmegen is one of the leading academic communities in the Netherlands. A place with a personal touch, where top-flight education and research take place on a beautiful green campus in modern buildings with state-of-art facilities.

The Donders Institute is affiliated to the Faculty of Social Sciences of Radboud University Nijmegen. The Centre for Cognition conducts interdisciplinary research and provides training in cognitive psychology and its neighbouring disciplines. Psychological and neuro-biological principles of information processing are jointly studied by scientists from various disciplines. The main host is the Centre for Cognition (affiliated to the Action, Intention & Motor Control section), and close cooperation has been planned with the Psychiatry Department of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre and with the Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging. Additional information on the Donders Institute and the research group can be obtained through the following links. Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour: http://www.ru.nl/donders/home/welcome/ Centre for Cognition: http://www.ru.nl/cognition/

Maximum salary amount in Euro's a month 2,621
Employment basis: Temporary for specified period
Duration of the contract: 4 years.
Maximum hours per week: 40

Additional conditions of employment:
The candidate will be appointed as a PhD student (1.0 FTE) for a period of 4 years. The candidate’s performance will be evaluated after 18 months. If the evaluation is positive, the contract will be extended by 2½ years.

Additional information about the vacancy can be obtained from:

dr. Ellen de Bruijn
Telephone number: +31 (0)24 3612618
E-mail address:

 
Or additional information can be obtained through one of the following links.

You can apply for this job before 30-11-2008 by sending your application to:

When applying for this job always mention the vacancy number 24.56.08.