Job ID: 120780

Post-doc Position at the University of Poitiers – France

Position: Post-doctoral Position

Deadline: 31 January 2025

Employment Start Date: 1 March 2025

Contract Length: 4 years

City: Poitiers

Country: France

Institution: University of Poitiers, Inserm U1084

Department: Laboratory of Experimental and Clinical Neurosciences

Description:

A 4-year post-doc position is available in the « Neurobiology and Neuropharmacology of Psychiatric Disorders » team, INSERM-University of Poitiers to work on the neurobiological mechanisms involved in food addiction.

We have recently developed a novel procedure, the progressive shock strength (PSS) that allows finely measuring of resistance to punishment which mimics the difficulty in controlling food seeking and taking behavior (Desmercieres et al, 2022 and 2024; Solinas et al. 2024).

In this project, will use the PSS procedure to investigate the brain mechanisms underlying food addiction. We will focus on the anterior insular cortex (aIC) and the dorsal striatum (DSt) because these two regions have been shown to be involved in punishment in humans but have not been studied in rodents. At the molecular level, we will focus on the endogenous cannabinoid system because converging evidence suggest that it may be involved in food addiction.

Experiments will comprise food self-administration, fiber photometry, molecular biology, viral vector in increase or decrease the expression of genes in specific brain regions.

We are looking for motivated post-docs that with a strong back-ground in behavioral neurosciences.