Os reenviamos un mensaje de nuestro compañero Daniel Sanabria sobre una plaza de personal investigador posdoctoral.

La Junta Directiva de la SEPEX

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Applications are invited for a full post-doc position at the Mind Brain and Behavioral research center, https://cimcyc.ugr.es/ University of Granada, Granada, Spain. 

We are looking for candidates with a background in cognitive neuroscience, although we would also consider any background that aligns with the aims of the project. We will value candidates with previous experience in EEG research and proficient at programming (e.g., Matlab, R, Python). This post is linked to the MICINN project ‘Cognitive and neural dynamics of transitions during physical exercise’, that will be developed in collaboration with Prof. Tristán Bekinschtein, at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Summary of the project: 

 The project studies the relationship between physical exercise, cognition and the brain dynamics. Previous studies have mainly focus on “the effect of» exercise on cognitive and brain outcomes or on «the effect of» cognitive and brain-related manipulations on exercise performance. Here we adopt a different approach to understand how cognitive and brain systems work during exercise. This proposal considers physical exercise as complex and effortful behaviour that requires goal monitoring and update, (external) stimuli processing and the constant monitoring of afferent signals from peripheral body systems. Crucially, it also involves the transition through different states as the intensity of the effort increases up to the point of extenuation, when the exercise stops.

These transitions have been described at the physiological level, defining the well-known aerobic, anaerobic and voluntary exhaustion threshold, however, there is no empirical evidence about their cognitive, neural and phenomenological underpinnings. Hence, this project seeks to characterize the neural, cognitive and phenomenological signatures of the transition from resting state to maximal physical exertion by modelling and understanding the rapidly-fluctuating global dynamics of brain function while exercising. We apply analytical methods that have been successful in the sleep and consciousness research, shifting the view of neural dynamics in terms of brain «energy» and oscillations to brain information and integration that travels within the brain networks. This approach offers a broader picture of the functioning of neural networks than traditional EEG analysis that rely on single parameters (e.g., frequency or phase of brain oscillations), providing both indexes of (global and local) complexity and information sharing (mutual links between different electrodes locations or brain areas). Importantly, we will also apply a novel methodology, the Temporal experience tracing, to study the neurophenomenology of transitions during physical exercise.

The candidate will be involved in pre-registration of the studies, data collection, modelling, exploration and analyses and writing and publishing the data, code, and articles of the project.

Conditions

The position will be funded for 2 years. Starting date: April 2021 (approx.). Salary (before tax): ~26500 euros/year (12 payments).

How to apply

Please, send an expression of interest (or other enquiries about the position) to daniel@ugr.es and tb419@cam.ac.uk. Include the following:

 – C.V., including a summary of your best five scientific contributions, and the contact of two academic referees.

Daniel Sanabria Lucena, PhD

Facultad de Psicología
Centro de Investigación Mente Cerebro y Comportamiento
http://peaf.ugr.es
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Daniel_Sanabria

Department of Experimental Psychology
Mind Brain & Behavior Research Center
University of Granada, Spain
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Daniel_Sanabria