Az MTA-TTK Kognitív Idegtudományi és Pszichológiai Intézetének két TDK lehetőségére szeretnénk felhíni a figyelmetek:

Az egyikben vírus-alapú génterápiás eljárásokkal lehet foglalkozni különböző idegsejttípusok megbetegedésének kezelése kapcsán:

Tema1:
One major therapeutic limitation of currently available small-molecule drugs is their limited action specificity. Limited specificity can be exhibited as serious side-effects and as loss of therapeutic potential, especially for diseases affecting the nervous system. Gene-therapy methods have the potential to target specifically cell-types that are causing a particular disease without altering the function of the rest of the nervous system. In this project we will use experimental animal models to test new viral-based gene-therapy approaches by analysing gene-expression specificity across brain areas and cell-types. The candidate can work on a wide range of tasks including working with experimental model animals, using state-of-the-art brain clearing methods, microscopy, image processing and statistical data analysis.

Másikban zavaros hatása vizsgálható a motoros programok kivételezésére:

Tema2:
Most species move around in the environment with remarkably diverse motor patterns. Motor programs are executed in function of continuous sensory input and feed-back signals. Though we are able to perform a well-rehearsed motor program in a well-known environment “blindly”, disruption of sensory signals during motor execution causes severe decrease in precision and feasibility of motor patterns. The aim of the project is to characterise the effect of disturbed vision in the execution of motor programs. We will use automatised machine learning algorithms (http://www.mousemotorlab.org/deeplabcut) to describe motion patterns. First, we will compare the limb and eye motion of head-fixed animals having normal or disrupted vision in well-defined behavioural tasks. In the second stage, we aim to create an arena where we record the limb and eye motion of a freely roaming animal thereby classifying their motion patterns in naturalistic conditions.

Bármelyik témára Hillier Dánielnél lehet jelentkezni a hillier_dani@yahoo.fr e-mail címen