Postdoctoral fellowship - Reward Processing in frontotemporal dementia and mood disorders

Dr. David Perry (https://perrylab.ucsf.edu/) is now inviting applications for a NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship position in his lab at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Memory and Aging Center. The goal of our lab’s research is to elucidate brain-behavior relationships in neurodegenerative disease in order to improve diagnostic certainty and identify therapeutic targets.

The UCSF Memory and Aging Center (memory.ucsf.edu) is part of the Department of Neurology and Weill Institute for Neurosciences. It has an extensive research infrastructure, with over 250 full-time research faculty and staff. The postdoctoral fellow will have the opportunity to participate in our innovative, interdisciplinary research environment. We are looking for candidates who have a background in neuroimaging, strong statistical training, and programming experience. The start date is flexible; review of applications is ongoing. Applicants should send a brief cover letter describing interests and relevant prior experience, CV, and contact information for three references to ([email protected]).

The postdoctoral fellow will work on our lab's study investigating abnormalities in reward processing in neurodegenerative diseases and mood disorders. Reward processing involves a determination of what an individual will work for or pursue, such as food, money, or social approval. Patients with neurodegenerative and mood disorders have profound changes in their reward valuation. We propose that a greater understanding of reward-seeking behavior in these illnesses and their underlying neural mechanisms will improve diagnostic accuracy and lead to therapeutic targets for behavioral symptoms that currently have no adequate treatment. Our studies of reward processing use behavioral paradigms with tools such as psychophysiology, as well as structural and functional neuroimaging.