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Postdoctoral Researcher – cognition, mental states, neuroscience and real-time neurofeedback. Center for Mindfulness, UMass Medical School, MA USA

If you love discovering how brain mechanisms, subjective experience of cognitive states, and technology fit together, you’ve come to the right place. The Center for Mindfulness at UMass Medical has an opening for a postdoctoral researcher to conduct research aimed at furthering our scientific understanding of specific cognitive states related to habit formation and other afflictive states, and the extent to which real time neurofeedback can track and help people change them (e.g. augment mindfulness training). We are studying questions such as: “What are the neural correlates of ‘getting caught up’ in a habit or addictive thinking pattern?” “What are the behavioral mechanisms underlying stress and emotional eating, and how can we target these for therapeutic benefit?” “How can we best utilize digital delivery of treatment (e.g. app-based training) to help people overcome bad habits and addictions?”

For a sample of some of the work we do, watch Anderson Cooper’s brain change in real time in a video from CBS’ 60 Minutes, or a short (12 minute) Al Jazeera documentary on our work with craving and habit change.

This is an exciting opportunity to participate in several neuroimaging projects, including real-time source-estimated EEG neurofeedback in conjunction with fMRI. We have recently identified biologically plausible brain targets of meditation (e.g. Brewer et al PNAS 2011, Garrison Neuroimage 2013 etc.), have linked specific brain regions to cognitive states such as ‘getting caught up’ in one’s experience (Brewer et al Frontiers 2013), and are currently running several NIH-funded trials to examine whether neurofeedback from specific brain regions can augment mindfulness acquisition in “healthy” as well as clinical populations. Ongoing neuroimaging projects include the effectiveness of mindfulness-based apps to battle addiction, investigating neuronal correlates of different states of meditation, and testing the efficacy of neurofeedback to help patients with schizophrenia learn mindfulness to help reduce their symptoms and disease burden.

The successful candidate will contribute to these efforts by providing analysis of current datasets and developing her/his own mentored projects.

The successful candidate should be creative, be able to communicate effectively and flourish as the center of a diverse, interdisciplinary team, and have good writing skills. Experience with fMRI and/or EEG techniques and analysis is important, and an interest in therapeutic applications of meditation and mindfulness training is preferred.

The position will be for up to 3 years (with possible extensions). The qualified candidate could begin work as early as January 1, 2017.

Desired skills and experience

• PhD in neuroscience, psychology, biomedical engineering or related field
• Experience with fMRI analysis (FSL, AFNI, SPM etc.)
• Experience with EEG application and analysis

To Apply:

Interested applicants should forward CV to:  Judson.Brewer@umassmed.edu

Please do not apply via this job posting.