Register now After registration you will be able to apply for this opportunity online.
This opportunity is not published. No applications will be accepted.
Move, food and mood.
In the context of global Covid-19 pandemic it may be tempting to side-line other health issues, however lockdowns and imposed restrictions are expected to worsen impacts of two of them in particular – bodyweight/metabolic and mental health problems. What is even more telling is that often these are comorbidities of one another - that is they are commonly diagnosed with one another. From an evolutionary biology point-of-view this link is less surprising, as all animals share a risky survival strategy – to move in order to secure energy and nutrients, avoid danger, spread out to novel environments and ultimately reproduce. However, this also means animals require expending a lot more energy, which in turn must be scavenged with surplus. To enable a mobile lifestyle, complex regulatory systems have evolved that compute energy and nutrient requirement against energy expenditure and metabolic needs: from sensory to digestive and metabolic systems, all the way regulatory hormonal and nervous systems, most important of which is the brain. Because these systems evolved to work together it therefore makes sense to study them in concert, which until recent technological advances was prohibitively difficult.
In the context of global Covid-19 pandemic it may be tempting to side-line other health issues, however lockdowns and imposed restrictions are expected to worsen impacts of two of them in particular – bodyweight/metabolic and mental health problems. What is even more telling is that often these are comorbidities of one another - that is they are commonly diagnosed with one another. From an evolutionary biology point-of-view this link is less surprising, as all animals share a risky survival strategy – to move in order to secure energy and nutrients, avoid danger, spread out to novel environments and ultimately reproduce. However, this also means animals require expending a lot more energy, which in turn must be scavenged with surplus. To enable a mobile lifestyle, complex regulatory systems have evolved that compute energy and nutrient requirement against energy expenditure and metabolic needs: from sensory to digestive and metabolic systems, all the way regulatory hormonal and nervous systems, most important of which is the brain. Because these systems evolved to work together it therefore makes sense to study them in concert, which until recent technological advances was prohibitively difficult.
The project outlined below will make use of an in-house built system capable of simultaneous metabolic, behavioural and neural recordings in mouse experimental models. This will enable rapidly screening of the effects of key nutrients and hormones on brain activity, behaviour and metabolic measures. The project will make use of state-of-the-art multidisciplinary tools:
1) Calcium photometry recordings of brain activity.
2) Gas-exchange measurements of metabolic rate.
3) Machine learning video analysis of behaviour.
The student will help develop and test a hypothesis for a specific brain area response to a set of nutrients. They will carry out the experiments, trouble shoot any appearing technical problems, write matlab & python data analysis code, and present the results in a lab meeting.
In the context of global Covid-19 pandemic it may be tempting to side-line other health issues, however lockdowns and imposed restrictions are expected to worsen impacts of two of them in particular – bodyweight/metabolic and mental health problems. What is even more telling is that often these are comorbidities of one another - that is they are commonly diagnosed with one another. From an evolutionary biology point-of-view this link is less surprising, as all animals share a risky survival strategy – to move in order to secure energy and nutrients, avoid danger, spread out to novel environments and ultimately reproduce. However, this also means animals require expending a lot more energy, which in turn must be scavenged with surplus. To enable a mobile lifestyle, complex regulatory systems have evolved that compute energy and nutrient requirement against energy expenditure and metabolic needs: from sensory to digestive and metabolic systems, all the way regulatory hormonal and nervous systems, most important of which is the brain. Because these systems evolved to work together it therefore makes sense to study them in concert, which until recent technological advances was prohibitively difficult. The project outlined below will make use of an in-house built system capable of simultaneous metabolic, behavioural and neural recordings in mouse experimental models. This will enable rapidly screening of the effects of key nutrients and hormones on brain activity, behaviour and metabolic measures. The project will make use of state-of-the-art multidisciplinary tools: 1) Calcium photometry recordings of brain activity. 2) Gas-exchange measurements of metabolic rate. 3) Machine learning video analysis of behaviour. The student will help develop and test a hypothesis for a specific brain area response to a set of nutrients. They will carry out the experiments, trouble shoot any appearing technical problems, write matlab & python data analysis code, and present the results in a lab meeting.