The open PhD position is integrated in the newly DFG-funded Research Training Group (RTG) “Emotional Learning and Memory”, located at the University of Hamburg and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf which offers in total 11 PhD positions at the intersection of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Psychiatry.
Project A1 (PI, Tina Lonsdorf) investigates how childhood adversity gets ‚under the skin‘. To this end, we use state of the art functional and structural imaging in combination with defensive startle responding, freezing-like behavior and measures of physiological arousal and endocrine stress responding (cortisol in hair and saliva) in a fear conditioning and generalization paradigm. Together with projects C1 and C2, we also follow a long-term perspective and assess symptom scores recurrently for a 72 month period to explore data driven subgroups and their link to responding in a fear conditioning paradigm in a large pooled sample.
The primary objectives of this interdisciplinary RTG are to elucidate the mechanisms involved in emotion-related alterations of learning and memory in health and disease and to train a new generation of scientists that is ideally equipped to perform research at the intersection of basic science and clinical research.
The training group offers an excellent infrastructure for training and research by internationally recognized scientists with state-of-the-art technologies. The program is complemented by specifically tailored seminars, courses, hands-on workshops, writing and presentation training as well as practical career development opportunities. Further, the research and teaching program is implemented in close collaboration with researchers from the Donders Institute of Brain, Cognition and Behaviour (Nijmegen, The Netherlands) and includes opportunities for international research stays.
For more information on the RTG projects and involved PIs, see here: www.grk2753.uni-hamburg.de.
Information on the lab of Dr. Lonsdorf can be found under www.lonsdorflab.com
Please sent your application documents merged into a single pdf (CV, certificates) to t.lonsdorf@uke.de