Postdoc_VICI_FUSI

A postdoctoral researcher is sought for the NWO Vici project “Empathy, helping and aggression: unravelling the missing neural link”, which investigates how empathic responses to the pain of others inhibit harmful behaviour across contexts, individuals, and species.

This postdoctoral position focuses on comparative work in rodents to understand the evolution and neural mechanisms of harm-aversion. The project asks whether mice use neural and computational mechanisms comparable to humans when avoiding harm to others, and whether disruptions in ACC–mPFC circuits contribute to pathological aggression.

The postdoc will use functional ultrasound imaging, behavioural assays, physiological recordings, computational modelling, and pathway-selective chemogenetic manipulations to study harm-aversion in mice. The project will focus on the ACC and medial prefrontal cortex, testing whether ACC→mPFC connectivity is necessary for harm-aversion. It will also compare mouse strains with different aggression phenotypes, including BALB/cJ and BALB/cByJ mice, to link circuit function, harm-aversion, and pathological aggression.

What you will be contributing

As postdoctoral researcher, your responsibilities will include:

• Optimizing and running head-fixed mouse behavioural tasks for harm-aversion and self-fear.
• Acquiring and analysing functional ultrasound imaging data from ACC, mPFC/prelimbic cortex, and related regions.
• Recording and analysing physiological and behavioural signals, including pupil, respiration, heart rate, facial/orofacial movements, and task behaviour.
• Performing or coordinating stereotaxic surgeries, viral injections, cranial window preparations, and pathway-selective DREADD experiments.
• Quantifying behaviour.
• Applying or adapting computational models to compare rodent behaviour with the human work packages.
• Collaborating closely with experts in ultrasound imaging, computational modelling, social neuroscience, and rodent circuit neuroscience.
• Preparing manuscripts, presenting results at international conferences, and contributing to open-science practices.
• Helping to supervise students and contribute to a collaborative lab culture.

Requirements

We are looking for a creative, rigorous, and independent scientist with a strong interest in the neural basis of social behaviour.

The ideal candidate has:

• A PhD, or is close to obtaining a PhD, in neuroscience, neurobiology, biomedical sciences, biomedical engineering, psychology, computational neuroscience, or a related discipline.
• Strong experience with ultrasound imaging.
• Strong experience with in vivo head-fixed rodent experimentation.
• Experience with rodent behavioural training and quantitative behavioural analysis.
• Excellent analytical and programming skills, preferably in Python, MATLAB, R, or comparable tools.
• Strong communication skills and proficiency in spoken and written English.
• The ability to work both independently and collaboratively in an interdisciplinary environment.
• A careful and responsible attitude toward animal welfare, experimental design, data quality, and reproducibility.

Experience in one or more of the following areas is considered an advantage:

• Rodent social behaviour, empathy-related behaviour, aggression, fear, or reinforcement learning tasks.
• Computational modelling, Bayesian statistics, reinforcement learning models, or model-based analysis of neural data.
• Analysis of pupil, heart rate, respiration, DeepLabCut, Facemap, or other video-based behavioural measures.
• Experience with collaborative and open-science workflows.

What do we offer?

You will join the Social Brain Lab at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, led by Valeria Gazzola and Christian Keysers. The lab investigates the neural mechanisms of empathy, social cognition, moral decision-making, and prosocial behaviour using cross-species approaches. The Social Brain Lab combines human neuroimaging, animal models, causal circuit manipulations, computational modelling, and behavioural neuroscience in a highly collaborative environment.

The Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience offers a highly international and interactive research environment in Amsterdam. The institute’s mission is to understand the neural circuits that create mental functions and how they change in brain disorders, using advanced neurotechnologies across human, primate, and rodent research.

The position provides:

• A central role in an ambitious NWO Vici project.
• Access to state-of-the-art rodent behavioural, imaging, and analysis infrastructure.
• Close collaboration with experts in functional ultrasound imaging, computational modelling, and social neuroscience.
• Opportunities to publish high-impact work, present at international conferences, and build an independent research profile.
• Opportunities for scientific and personal development through courses, workshops, mentoring, and collaborations.

Applying for a Certificate of Good Conduct can be part of the employment procedure.