[EXPIRED] The Capital Region of Copenhagen is looking for a PhD candidate in EEG and ultra-high field MRI within developmental neuropsychiatry

Are you interested in unravelling how alterations in developing brain function and structure contribute to developmental psychiatric disorders? Do you thrive working in inspiring multidisciplinary teams, bridging between brain mapping, computational modelling, and clinical neuroscience? Then you are the person we are looking for!

The Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance (DRCMR) at Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre (Denmark) is seeking a 3-year PhD candidate in EEG and ultra-high field MRI within the field of developmental psychiatry. Together with our strong clinical collaborators at the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Unit, we are currently running the prospective Danish High Risk and Resilience Study (VIA) (www.drcmr.dk/via). The VIA study longitudinally follows the largest register-based cohort of children (n=522) in the world born to parents with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or none of these disorders. Children were assessed at the ages of 7, 11, and 15 years with neuroimaging included at age 11 and onwards. We are currently running the second longitudinal neuroimaging follow-up at age 19 years.

You will mainly be working on the longitudinal VIA data, with a focus on EEG data and 7T spectroscopy data. The project involves collection of both EEG and MRI data in the VIA cohort as well as analyses of EEG and MRI data, with a strong focus on the EEG part.

You will be a member of the “Developmental Psychiatry” group (www.drcmr.dk/developmental-psychiatry) where the VIA project is embedded (www.drcmr.dk/via). You will thereby have ample possibilities to interact with researchers who are working on related multimodal neuroimaging studies.

The PhD candidate position involves a tight collaboration with Prof. Merete Nordentoft (Region Hovedstaden - Psychiatry and University of Copenhagen) as the main PI of the VIA cohort study and the VIA neuroimaging group, including neuroimagers at DRCMR and the Center of Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Aarhus, Denmark.

Qualifications:

Master's degree in neuroscience, computational science and engineering, psychology or equivalent.
Experience with EEG and/or MRI data acquisition and/or data analyses.
Experience in Matlab or Python programming is highly desired.
Experience with signal processing and data analyses is desired.
You have a good team spirit, innovative and constructive thinking and are excited about research.
You have an interest and/or experience in mechanisms/pathophysiology related to child- and adolescent mental health and developmental neuropsychiatry.
You enjoy being part of a multidisciplinary and international research team and integrating technological innovations into your neuroscience research.
You possess good English communication skills.

The project will be carried out at the DRCMR, which is a leading research centre for biomedical MRI in Europe (www.drcmr.dk) focusing on the brain. Approx. 75 researchers from more than 20 countries and a diverse range of disciplines are currently pursuing basic and clinically applied MR research and its validation with a focus on structural, functional, and metabolic MRI of the human brain and its disorders. The DRCMR is embedded in the Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, a large diagnostic imaging department including all biomedical imaging modalities at the Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre.

The DRCMR has a state-of-the-art research infrastructure for preclinical and human medical imaging, which includes six whole-body MR scanners (one 7T, four 3T and one 1.5T scanners), a preclinical 7T scanner, a High-Performance Computer cluster and several state-of-the-art laboratories for electrophysiology and non-invasive brain stimulation.

The postdoc project will be supervised by Senior Researcher Melissa Larsen and Professor Hartwig Siebner.

Salary and Terms of Employment:

You will be employed as a PhD candidate for a period of 3 years. Salary, pension and terms of employment are in accordance with the agreement between the Danish Regions (Danske Regioner) and the relevant professional organization. The salary depends on background education and seniority. Note that candidates coming from abroad may be eligible for tax reductions. The position is open for candidates of all nationalities.

We see diversity as strength and encourage all persons regardless of gender, age, ethnicity, disabilities, or religion to apply.

Selected Publications

Webb JL, Troise L, Hansen NW, Olsson C, Wojciechowski AM, Achard J, Brinza O, Staacke R, Kieschnick M, Meijer J, Thielscher A, Perrier J-F, Berg-Sørensen K, Huck A, Andersen UL. 2021. Detection of biological signals from a live mammalian muscle using an early stage diamond quantum sensor. Scientific Reports. 11(1):1-11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-81828-x

von Conta J, Kasten FH, Ćurčić-Blake B, Aleman A, Thielscher A, Herrmann CS. 2021. Interindividual variability of electric fields during transcranial temporal interference stimulation (tTIS). Scientific Reports. 11(1):1-12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-99749-0

Splittgerber M, Borzikowsky C, Salvador R, Puonti O, Papadimitriou K, Merschformann C, Biagi MC, Stenner T, Brauer H, Breitling-Ziegler C, Prehn-Kristensen A, Krauel K, Ruffini G, Pedersen A, Nees F, Thielscher A, Dempfle A, Siniatchkin M, Moliadze V. 2021. Multichannel anodal tDCS over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in a paediatric population. Scientific Reports. 11(1):1-15. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-00933-z

Shirinpour S, Mantell K, Li X, Puonti O, Madsen K, Haigh Z, Casillo EC, Alekseichuk I, Hendrickson T, Xu T. 2021. New tools for computational modeling of non-invasive brain stimulation in SimNIBS. Brain Stimulation: Basic, Translational, and Clinical Research in Neuromodulation. 14(6):1644. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2021.10.180

Saturnino GB, Madsen KH, Thielscher A. 2021. Optimizing the electric field strength in multiple targets for multichannel transcranial electric stimulation. Journal of Neural Engineering. 18(1): Article 014001. https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-2552/abca15

Numssen O, Zier A-L, Thielscher A, Hartwigsen G, Knösche TR, Weise K. 2021. Efficient high-resolution TMS mapping of the human motor cortex by nonlinear regression. NeuroImage. 245:1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118654

Montanaro H, Pasquinelli C, Lee HJ, Kim H, Siebner HR, Kuster N, Thielscher A, Neufeld E. 2021. The impact of CT image parameters and skull heterogeneity modeling on the accuracy of transcranial focused ultrasound simulations. Journal of Neural Engineering. 18(4):1-28. https://doi.org/10.1088/1741-2552/abf68d

Mezger E, Rauchmann B-S, Brunoni AR, Bulubas L, Thielscher A, Werle J, Mortazavi M, Karali T, Stöcklein S, Ertl-Wagner B, Goerigk S, Padberg F, Keeser D. 2021. Effects of bifrontal transcranial direct current stimulation on brain glutamate levels and resting state connectivity: multimodal MRI data for the cathodal stimulation site. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience. 271(1):111-122. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-020-01177-0

Karadas M, Olsson C, Winther Hansen N, Perrier J-F, Webb JL, Huck A, Andersen UL, Thielscher A. 2021. In-vitro Recordings of Neural Magnetic Activity From the Auditory Brainstem Using Color Centers in Diamond: A Simulation Study. Frontiers in Neuroscience. 15:1-17. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.643614

Gregersen F, Göksu C, Schaefers G, Xue R, Thielscher A, Hanson LG. 2021. Safety Evaluation of a New Setup for Transcranial Electric Stimulation during Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Brain Stimulation. 14(3):488-497. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2021.02.019

Göksu C, Scheffler K, Gregersen F, Eroğlu HH, Heule R, Siebner HR, Hanson LG, Thielscher A. 2021. Sensitivity and resolution improvement for in vivo magnetic resonance current-density imaging of the human brain. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. 86(6):3131-3146. https://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.28944

Eroğlu HH, Puonti O, Göksu C, Gregersen F, Siebner HR, Hanson LG, Thielscher A. 2021. On the reconstruction of magnetic resonance current density images of the human brain: Pitfalls and perspectives. NeuroImage. 243:1-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118517

Dubbioso R, Madsen KH, Thielscher A, Siebner HR. 2021. The myelin content of the human precentral hand knob reflects interindividual differences in manual motor control at the physiological and behavioral level. The Journal of Neuroscience: the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience. 41(14):3163-3179. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0390-20.2021

Antonenko D, Grittner U, Puonti O, Flöel A, Thielscher A. 2021. Estimation of individually induced e-field strength during transcranial electric stimulation using the head circumference. Brain Stimulation. 14(5):1055-1058. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2021.07.001

Antonenko D, Grittner U, Saturnino G, Nierhaus T, Thielscher A, Flöel A. 2021. Inter-individual and age-dependent variability in simulated electric fields induced by conventional transcranial electrical stimulation. NeuroImage. 224:1-9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117413

Weise K, Numssen O, Thielscher A, Hartwigsen G, Knösche TR. 2020. A novel approach to localize cortical TMS effects. NeuroImage. 209:1-17. Available from: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116486

Puonti O, Van Leemput K, Saturnino GB, Siebner HR, Madsen KH, Thielscher A. 2020. Accurate and robust whole-head segmentation from magnetic resonance images for individualized head modeling. NeuroImage. 219:1-17. Available from: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117044

Puonti O, Saturnino GB, Madsen KH, Thielscher A. 2020. Value and limitations of intracranial recordings for validating electric field modeling for transcranial brain stimulation. NeuroImage. 208:1-14. Available from: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116431

Pasquinelli C, Montanaro H, Lee HJ, Hanson LG, Kim H, Kuster N, Siebner HR, Neufeld E, Thielscher A. 2020. Transducer modeling for accurate acoustic simulations of transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation. Journal of Neural Engineering. 17(4):1-22. Available from: 10.1088/1741-2552/ab98dc

Habich A, Fehér KD, Antonenko D, Boraxbekk C-J, Flöel A, Nissen C, Siebner HR, Thielscher A, Klöppel S. 2020. Stimulating aged brains with transcranial direct current stimulation: Opportunities and challenges: Opportunities and challenges. Psychiatry Research - Neuroimaging. 306:1-9. Available from: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2020.111179

Boayue NM, Csifcsák G, Aslaksen P, Turi Z, Antal A, Groot J, Hawkins GE, Forstmann B, Opitz A, Thielscher A, Mittner M. 2020. Increasing propensity to mind-wander by transcranial direct current stimulation? A registered report. European Journal of Neuroscience. 51(3):755-780. Available from: 10.1111/ejn.14347

Bikson M, Hanlon CA, Woods AJ, Gillick BT, Charvet L, Lamm C, Madeo G, Holczer A, Almeida J, Antal A, Ay MR, Baeken C, Blumberger DM, Campanella S, Camprodon J, Christiansen L, Colleen L, Crinion J, Fitzgerald P, Gallimberti L, Ghobadi-Azbari P, Ghodratitoostani I, Grabner R, Hartwigsen G, Hirata A, Kirton A, Knotkova H, Krupitsky E, Marangolo P, Nakamura-Palacios EM, Potok W, Praharaj SK, Ruff CC, Schlaug G, Siebner HR, Stagg CJ, Thielscher A, Wenderoth N, Yuan T-F, Zhang X, Ekhtiari H. 2020. Guidelines for TMS/tES Clinical Services and Research through the COVID-19 Pandemic. Brain Stimulation. 13(4):1124-1149. Available from: 10.1016/j.brs.2020.05.010

Saturnino GB, Siebner HR, Thielscher A, Madsen KH Accessibility of cortical regions to focal TES: Dependence on spatial position, safety, and practical constraints. Neuroimage. 2019 doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116183

Saturnino GB, Madsen KH, Thielscher A Electric field simulations for transcranial brain stimulation using FEM: an efficient implementation and error analysis. J Neural Eng. doi: 10.1088/1741-2552/ab41ba, 2019

Pasquinelli C, Hanson LG, Siebner HR, Lee HJ, Thielscher A Safety of transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation: A systematic review of the state of knowledge from both human and animal studies Brain Stimul. doi: 10.1016/j.brs.2019.07.024, 2019

Korshøj AR, Sørensen JCH, von Oettingen G, Poulsen FR, Thielscher A Optimization of tumor treating fields using singular value decomposition and minimization of field anisotropy. Phys Med Biol. 64(4):04NT03. 2019

Saturnino GB, Thielscher A, Madsen KH, Knösche TR, Weise K. A principled approach to conductivity uncertainty analysis in electric field calculations. Neuroimage. 188:821-834, 2019

Karadas M, Wojciechowski AM, Huck A, Dalby NO, Andersen UL, Thielscher A. Feasibility and resolution limits of opto-magnetic imaging of neural network activity in brain slices using color centers in diamond. Sci Rep. 8(1):4503, 2018.

Nielsen JD, Madsen KH, Puonti O, Siebner HR, Bauer C, Madsen CG, Saturnino GB, Thielscher A Automatic skull segmentation from MR images for realistic volume conductor models of the head: Assessment of the state-of-the-art. Neuroimage. 174:587-598, 2018.

Göksu, C., Hanson, L. G., Siebner, H. R., Ehses, P., Scheffler, K. & Thielscher, A. Human in-vivo brain magnetic resonance current density imaging (MRCDI). NeuroImage. 171, p. 26-39, 2018.

Göksu C, Scheffler K, Ehses P, Hanson L.G, Thielscher A. Sensitivity Analysis of Magnetic Field Measurements for Magnetic Resonance Electrical Impedance Tomography (MREIT), Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. 79, p. 748-760, 2018.

Bungert, A., Antunes, A., Espenhahn, S. & Thielscher, A. Where does TMS Stimulate the Motor Cortex? Combining Electrophysiological Measurements and Realistic Field Estimates to Reveal the Affected Cortex Position. Cerebral cortex, 27(11):5083-5094, 2017.

Minjoli, S., Saturnino, G. B., Blicher, J. U., Stagg, C. J., Siebner, H. R., Antunes, A. & Thielscher, A. The impact of large structural brain changes in chronic stroke patients on the electric field caused by transcranial brain stimulation. NeuroImage. Clinical. 15, p. 106-117, 2017.

Saturnino, G. B., Madsen, K. H., Siebner, H. R. & Thielscher, A. How to target inter-regional phase synchronization with dual-site Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation.
NeuroImage. 163, p. 68-80, 2017.

Madsen, K.H., Ewald, L., Siebner, H.R., Thielscher, A. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation: An Automated Procedure to Obtain Coil-specific Models for Field Calculations. Brain Stimulation 8, 1205-1208, 2015

Saturnino, G.B., Antunes, A., Thielscher, A. On the importance of electrode parameters for shaping electric field patterns generated by tDCS. Neuroimage 120, 25-35, 2015.

Moisa, M., Siebner, H.R., Pohmann, R., Thielscher, A. Uncovering a context-specific connectional fingerprint of human dorsal premotor cortex. J Neurosci 32, 7244-7252, 2012.

Thielscher, A., Opitz, A., Windhoff, M. Impact of the gyral geometry on the electric field induced by transcranial magnetic stimulation. Neuroimage 54, 234-243, 2011