Scientific research assistant Cognitive Neuropsychology

Are you eager to dive into cutting-edge neuromodulation and real-world symptom monitoring?
As a research assistant in our team, you will be running TMS sessions, working with intensive longitudinal data from daily life, and contributing to a new, state-informed approach to brain stimulation. This position offers the unique opportunity to work at the intersection of neuroscience, data science, and clinical research, with room for creativity, technical exploration, and meaningful impact. Here you'll have the chance to help deliver an iTBS protocol targeting the left prefrontal cortex, to model how cognitive fatigue fluctuates from moment to moment, and to explore who responds to stimulation and when. Curious minds are very welcome.

Context
In this project, members of the Cognitive Neuropsychology Department at Tilburg University aim to bridge real-time symptom monitoring in daily life with a pilot neuromodulation design, to better understand when and for whom stimulation may be most effective. By identifying dynamic fatigue profiles in students with elevated fatigue and relating them to short-term response to iTBS, the project lays the groundwork for more personalized, state-informed brain stimulation in clinical populations experiencing "mental fog".

Your position 
As a Research Assistant, you will support an ongoing pilot project that combines ecological momentary assessment (EMA) with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), with the broader goal of understanding cognitive fatigue as a dynamic process. Your work will involve a short literature study, hands-on involvement in data collection (EMA via a smartphone app and iTBS sessions in the lab), and initial support of the data analysis. Over time, you'll help document the workflows that link daily-life symptom dynamics to short-term response to stimulation.

You'll mainly focus on the data-collection (recruitment, running TMS sessions, monitoring EMA compliance) and later on explore preliminary analyses (processing intensive longitudinal data).

You'll be actively involved in:

• Recruiting and scheduling participants and running EMA and iTBS sessions
• Following predefined TMS procedures (resting motor threshold, Beam F3 localization, delivering the iTBS protocol) under supervision
• Monitoring and managing the EMA data collection and participant compliance
• Contributing to the processing and analysis of intensive longitudinal (EMA) and stimulation data
• Summarizing results and documenting workflows, and collaborating with the research team on interim findings and next steps
  

This way, you'll have an influence on the direction of the project and the opportunity to apply and further refine valuable skills at the intersection of neuromodulation, data science, and clinical research.

What your typical week might look like:
You'll split your time between the lab and independent work, i.e. running participant sessions (TMS and EMA onboarding), meeting with supervisors to discuss progress and troubleshoot technical or practical challenges, and documenting your workflow and results. Some weeks may be focused on data collection and participant contact, others on managing and interpreting the EMA and stimulation data, or preparing summary reports.