Training mice on a touchscreen visual categorization task
Figure 1: Schematic of Touchscreen Chamber adapted from https://bio-protocol.org/e2583
The Grewe lab is looking for a student who is interested in joining a project to investigate the neuronal underpinnings of continual learning in mice. One of the primary goals of the lab is to extract fundamental principles of information processing from biological neural networks and to reverse-engineer this functionality with the goal to improve machine-learning applications. In this particular project we will carry out neuronal recordings using calcium imaging and miniaturized microscopes in freely-moving mice performing multiple operant tasks in order to understand how biological neural networks efficiently encode and retrieve multiple tasks without forgetting.
The aim of the student’s project is to establish a visual categorization task in mice to investigate context-based rule retrieval. For this the student will use state-of-the-art touchscreen chambers to train mice to discriminate visual stimuli categories based on specific rules which are tied to specific contexts.
Responsibilities:
• Training mice 2-3 h per day for 5 days a week on a visual categorization task
What we offer:
• Interdisciplinary environment at the intersection of neuroscience and machine learning
• Opportunity to carrying out a master thesis project in our group at a later time point
• Salary of 28 CHF/h
Start of Project: Immediately
Length of Project: 6-8 months
Requirements
• Enrolled with the university
• License for conducting animal experiments (can be obtained in a 5-day course paid by the University)
• Experience in working in a lab and with animals is desirable
Contact
Elisabeth.abs (at) ini.ethz.ch
Interested students should send a short motivation and information about their background. For further questions about the project, do not hesitate to contact me.