Os enviamos información sobre una oferta de contrato postdoctoral a tiempo completo, con una duración de dos años, en el Cognitive and Affective Dynamics Lab del CIMCYC (Universidad de Granada).

La Junta Directiva de la SEPEX

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Call for Applications: Post-Doctoral Position

The Cognitive and Affective Dynamics Lab, based at the Mind, Brain, and Behavior Research Center (University of Granada, Spain), invites applications for a full-time post-doctoral position.

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 Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities project ‘Stepping into a distinct state: a novel approach to unravel neural auditory processing and representation while walking (STEPSTATE)’, that will be developed in collaboration with Prof. Tristan Bekinschtein, at the University of Cambridge, UK (see below).

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

Duration: The position will be funded for 24 months.

Starting date: September/October 2025.

Gross salary: ~30000 euros/year (12 payments).

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

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

Summary of the project: Humans have evolved to be physically proficient, a trait that significantly contributes to our adaptation to the environment. This capacity, rooted in our ability to walk for long hours, has been crucial for survival throughout our evolutionary history. During walking, the body systems undergo a transition from awake resting to a different state, which has been well-characterized at the metabolic, skeletal, and muscular levels. STEPSTATE posits that the physiological state induced by walking can be positioned within a multidimensional space, incorporating not only metabolic, skeletal, and muscular dimensions but also neural processing and representation of incoming sensory information. However, while extensive research has investigated neural sensory processing and representation during states induced by sleep and awake resting, much less is known about the state induced by walking. STEPSTATE aims at addressing this gap in the literature. Drift diffusion modeling will be employed to account for differences in behavioral cognitive performance, while EEG univariate and multivariate analyses will capture variations in neural processing and representation during the state induced by aerobic exercise, with a specific emphasis on walking relative to awake resting. We will also apply a novel methodology, the Temporal experience tracing, to study the neurophenomenology of walking. The significance of STEPSTATE lies not only in its unique approach to defining physical exercise as a behavior that elicits a multidimensional state but also in its potential to advance the understanding of the interplay between exercise, brain function, cognition and subjective experience.

Here are some papers from previous related work:

Avancini, C., Ciria, L. F., Alameda, C., Palenciano, A. F., Canales-Johnson, A., Bekinschtein, T. A., & Sanabria, D. (2024). High-intensity physiological activation disrupts the neural signatures of conflict processing. Communications Biology, 7(1), 1-12.

Alameda, C., Avancini, C., Sanabria, D., Bekinschtein, T. A., Canales-Johnson, A., & Ciria, L. F. (s. f.). Staying in control: Characterizing the mechanisms underlying cognitive control in high and low arousal states. British Journal of Psychology, n/a(n/a).

Holgado, D., Cailleux, A., Ruggeri, P., Martarelli, C., Bekinschtein, T., Sanabria, D., & Place, N. (2024). Individualized cognitive effort to failure does not impact subsequent strenuous physical performance. OSF. (accepted for publication in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise)

Lewis-Healey, E., Tagliazucchi, E., Canales-Johnson, A., & Bekinschtein, T. A. (2024). Breathwork-induced psychedelic experiences modulate neural dynamics. Cerebral Cortex, 34(8), bhae347.