PhD candidate, School for Mental Health and Neuroscience / Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology / Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences

PhD candidate, School for Mental Health and Neuroscience / Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology / Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences
PhD candidate, School for Mental Health and Neuroscience / Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology / Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences

Published	Deadline	Location
today	15 Nov	Maastricht

PhD candidate for the project: “Mechanisms of action of Deep Brain Stimulation in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder”

Job description

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a severe and leading cause of illness-related disability. It is characterized by repeated and heterogenous obsessions and/or compulsions. OCD typically starts in adolescence but may start at any age. Epidemiological studies show that 1-3% of the general population suffers from OCD. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and drug treatment are first line treatment options.
Unfortunately, up to 10-20% of the patients do not respond to these therapies and consequently can be candidates for deep brain stimulation (DBS). Patients experience a 30- 40% improvement, which is a much lower response rate compared to DBS in movementrelated disorders such as Parkinson Disease. However, OCD is a heterogeneous disease. Therefore, choosing a fixed neuroanatomical DBS target is unlikely to be effective in all cases. Therefore, we need to take a step back and understand how DBS acts on OCD disease mechanisms, and ultimately aim for a personalized approach.
The PhD-candidate will be involved in interdisciplinary research using a multi-modal approach combining clinometrics, neuroimaging, and neurophysiological measures to optimize and personalize DBS intervention in OCD.

Specifications

• max. 38 hours per week
• €2541—€3247 per month
• Maastricht View on Google Maps

Maastricht University (UM)

Requirements

You hold a master’s degree in Medicine, Neuroscience, (Neuro)psychology, Psychopathology or any other relevant Biomedical Sciences field. You have a real researcher’s mentality; open-minded, curious, enthusiastic, and accurate. You are pro-active, capable of working independently, and you like to work in a team. You have good organizational and communicative skills and master the English language in spoken and written form. Due to the multimodal approach of this project, the candidate should have highly developed skills with neuroimaging and programming, but the candidate should also have soft skills essential for working with patients (e.g., for clinometrics). Because of the interaction with patients, it is preferred that the candidate also speaks Dutch (minimum limited working proficiency).

Conditions of employment

Fixed-term contract: 48 months (1+3 years).

Temporary employment for 4 years. The first year will be a probation period; after a positive assessment the position will be extended for another 3 years, which happens in the vast majority of cases.

Your salary would be € 2.541,- gross per month in the first year up to € 3.427,- gross per month in the fourth year according to the PhD-candidate salary scale. An 8% holiday and an 8.3% year-end allowance is also provided. Each year an evaluation will take place.

The terms of employment of Maastricht University are set out in the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities (CAO). Furthermore, local UM provisions also apply. For more information look at the website www.maastrichtuniversity.nl  > About UM > Working at UM .

Employer
Maastricht University

Maastricht University is renowned for its unique, innovative, problem-based learning system, which is characterized by a small-scale and student-oriented approach. Research at UM is characterized by a multidisciplinary and thematic approach, and is concentrated in research institutes and schools. Maastricht University has around 22,000 students and about 5,000 employees. Reflecting the university’s strong international profile, a fair amount of both students and staff are from abroad. The university hosts 6 faculties: Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Faculty of Law, School of Business and Economics, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience.

Department
School for Mental Health & Neuroscience (MHeNs)

The School for Mental Health and Neuroscience (MHeNs) strives to advance our understanding of brain-behaviour relationships by using an approach integrating various disciplines in neuro- and behavioural science, medicine, and the life sciences. MHeNs performs high-impact neuroscience research and educates master’s students and PhD researchers. MHeNs performs translational research, meaning practical collaboration between researchers in the lab and in the hospital and in close collaboration with the Faculty for Psychology and Neuroscience and School of Business and Economics (Centre for Integrative Neuroscience).
https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/research/school-mental-health-and-neuroscience

Additional information

For questions about this position please contact:
Prof. Dr. K. Schruers, [email protected]
Prof. Dr. S.A. Kotz, [email protected]
Dr. L. Ackermans, [email protected]
Dr. Liesbet Goossens, [email protected]

To apply at this vacancy, press the button ‘apply now’ to see the application procedure.

Working at Maastricht University

Maastricht University distinguishes itself with its innovative education model, international character and multidisciplinary approach to research and education.

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Application procedure

You can respond to this vacancy by sending your motivation letter and CV (as pdf file) to:
[email protected] .

Mention also the vacancy number/job number (AT2022.459) and the project name in your application.

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Maastricht University is committed to promoting and nurturing a diverse and inclusive community. We believe that diversity in our staff and student population contributes to the quality of research and education at UM, and strive to enable this through inclusive policies and innovative projects led by teams of staff and students. We encourage you to apply for this position.