Neuronal excitability and its changes caused by a pathology

PhD study programme: Physiology, Pathological Physiology, Medical Chemistry and Biochemistry
Specialization: Physiology
Form of the study: PhD full-time study
Workplace: Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Markéta Bébarová, MD, PhD
Topic of the PhD study: Neuronal excitability and its changes caused by a pathology

Annotation:

Adequate excitability is a basic parameter determining the physiological level of nerve tissue activity. Increased and decreased neuronal excitability can thus have a significant impact on the function of nervous tissue and is the basis of a number of neuropsychiatric diseases. As part of this project, functional analysis of various nerve tissue preparations (especially 2D neuronal cultures and sections from nerve tissue, including tissue extirpated from patients during neurosurgical therapeutic interventions) will be performed using multielectrode array and/or whole cell patch clamp techniques.
The aim of the thesis will be to master the necessary methodologies and with their help to analyse changes in the excitability of neurons and nervous tissue induced by a selected pathology (e.g. neurodegenerative diseases or epilepsy).

Grant Support: Grant Agency of MU – Specific Research, AZV (NU22-04-00366, 2022-2025), NPO (LX22NPO5107, 2022-2025)
Availability of Workload or Project Financing (beyond the scholarship from MU):
Scholarship from the Specific Research at MU, workload from a grant project. The workload from the institutional budget is at the discretion of the head of the department after the student is involved in teaching.

A brief overview of requirements according to the doctoral board:

• completion of compulsory courses
• completion of the compulsory internship abroad (at least 1 month-stay) or participation in an international project with results published/presented abroad or another form of direct participation in an international cooperation
• at least one first author publication in a journal with IF above the median IF in the field (or two first author publications in a journal with IF in Q3)
• participation in teaching undergraduate students
• good passive as well as active knowledge of English (basic knowledge of Czech beneficial)

Supervisor:

Assoc. Prof. Markéta Bébarová, MD, PhD ([email protected] )

• publication activity: 47 papers in extenso (30 in journals with IF - 26 original research papers and 4 review papers), h-index 11
• recent grant projects: AZV (NU22-02-00348, 2022-2025; 16-30571A, 2016-2020); National Institute for Neurological Research (LX22NPO5107, 2022-2025); GAČR (GA22-28784S, 2022-2024); Grant Agency of MU (e.g. MUNI/A/1133/2021 and MUNI/A/1246/2020); Internal Project of LF MU (MUNI/11/SUP/07/2020, MUNI/11/SUP/18/2020)
• international cooperation in the field of study: prof. Gavin Woodhall (Aston University, Birmingham, UK)
• supervised PhD students/PhD graduates: 3/0