The Frank Lab at the University of California, San Francisco is looking for a Junior Specialist Technician to begin work January 2021 or later. This is a full-time paid position with a two-year minimum commitment required. During this time, the technician will work directly with a postdoctoral fellow and may also contribute to other lab projects as time allows. The lab investigates the neural underpinnings of learning and memory by collecting in vivo electrophysiological recordings from the hippocampus of rats while they learn and perform complex, memory-dependent behaviors. We have developed cutting-edge decoding algorithms to capture neural representations of spatial location as rats navigate an environment. The specific project aims to measure how such spatial representations are altered in aged rats compared to young rats and assess whether changes in spatial representation might drive changes in performance of a memory-dependent task. Please reach out to Anna Gillespie (postdoc) if interested.

Responsibilities include:

Handling and behavioral training of rats
Construction of microelectrode drives
Participation in rat implant surgeries
Development of behavioral and neural data analyses
Collection of large scale electrophysiological and behavioral datasets