PhD Student Neuroscience of Disordered Desires and Resulting Biological Treatment Options (...

Background: Our group investigates brain networks of desire and incentive sensitisation in a transdiagnostic framework. We combine behavioural and neuroimaging methods and one specific aim of this project is to develop neurofeedback protocols that can be used in the treatment of disordered desires, for example in the context of eating disorders.

Research method: You will analyse fMRI data using Multi-Voxel Pattern Analyses (MVPA) and Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA), which decode information content in the brain, to answer the crucial question of how food and other motivational stimuli are represented as distributed brain activity in the brain. You will also apply uni- and multivariate real-time fMRI analysis in order to provide neurofeedback for the self-regulation training of the relevant brain networks and use ecological momentary assessments to evaluate effects on symptom networks.

Your job: You will be responsible for programming the experimental protocols and test the participants. You will be trained on how to use our MRI facilities. Next, you will analyse both fMRI and behavioural data, and publish your results in scientific journals, and write a doctoral dissertation based on your research.

Embedding: Maastricht University is the leading institution of the Gravitation project, heading an interdisciplinary team with staff members of Dutch universities, divided over 6 teams. This PhD position is embedded in ‘team disordered desires’, and will be based at the Maastricht Brain Imaging Centre (MBIC: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/research/maastricht-brain-imaging-ce... ).

You will work closely with other PhD candidates working in affective and motivational neuroscience and neurofeedback (based in Maastricht at the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience (FPN) and the School for Mental Health and Neuroscience of the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences), and you will be supervised by a team of three experienced researchers (psychology, neuroscience and psychiatry).