The Institute of General Psychology, Biopsychology and Methods of Psychology, Chair of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience (Prof. Katharina von Kriegstein, https://tu-dresden.de/mn/psychologie/ifap/kknw) offers, subject to the availability of resources, a position as Research Associate / PhD student / Postdoc (m/f/x) (subject to personal qualification employees are remunerated according to salary group E 13 TV-L) with 75% of the fulltime weekly working hours for doctoral candidates or 100% for postdocs. The position is starting as soon as possible and has a duration of 3 years with possible extension. The period of employment is governed by the Fixed Term Research Contracts Act (WissZeitVG). The position offers the chance to obtain further academic qualification (e.g. PhD / habilitation thesis). The project: The position is part of ReDyslexia funded by ERANET-NEURON (https://www.neuron-eranet.eu/projects/ReDyslexia/). ReDyslexia is a research consortium of neuroscientists and clinicians that have the aim (1) to better understand sensory pathway dysfunction in developmental dyslexia, and (2) to directly use this knowledge for improving treatment strategies. ReDyslexia includes studies in humans with developmental dyslexia as well as experiments in animal models. Tasks: The task involves (i) using a neuroimaging and behaviour database to assess sensory pathway dysfunction in dyslexia during childhood development, (ii) employing neurostimulation, neuroimaging, and behavioural measurements to assess and establish novel treatment approaches in adult dyslexics, and (iii) collaborating with clinicians and wet-lab neuroscientists to develop common experimental paradigms across different developmental stages and species. The setting: TU Dresden is one of eleven German Universities of Excellence. It provides an outstanding scientific infrastructure and ideal environment for interdisciplinary cooperation. Developmental neuroimaging projects will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. R. Bethlehem (University of Cambridge, https://www.autismresearchcentre.com/staff/richard-bethlehem/). Experiments will be performed at the Neuroimaging Centre (NIC, http://www.nic-tud.de). The NIC is equipped with a research-only MRI machine (Siemens 3T Prisma), MRI-compatible EEG, eye-tracking and noise-cancellation headphones, and a neurostimulation unit including TMS, tDCS, and tFUS. All experimental facilities are supported by experienced physics and IT staff. For computational work, there is access to the Centre for Information Services and High Performance Computing at TU Dresden. The TU Dresden Graduate Academy offers a comprehensive training programme and individual career advice for early career researchers (https://tu-dresden.de/ga?set_language=en). Applications from women are particularly welcome. The same applies to people with disabilities. Contact for Questions: For questions about the position please contact Prof. Dr. Katharina von Kriegstein (katharina.von_kriegstein@tu-dresden.de). Application instruction: Please submit your complete application including (a cover letter that briefly describes your personal qualifications and future research interests, CV, contact details of 2 personal references, and 1-2 publications as PDF for postdocs) by sending it as a single PDF document preferably via the TU Dresden SecureMail Portal https://securemail.tu-dresden.de (subject: ReDyslexia2022) to julia.herdin@tu-dresden.de or by mail to: TU Dresden, Fakultät Psychologie, Institut für Allgemeine Psychologie, Biopsychologie und Methoden der Psychologie, Professur für Kognitive und Klinische Neurowissenschaft, Prof. Katharina von Kriegstein, Helmholtzstr. 10, 01069 Dresden. The deadline for applications is February 23, 2022 (stamped arrival date of the university central mail service applies). Please submit copies only, as your application will not be returned to you.

** FULL JOB AD => please follow the link ** - https://tud.link/rm7g The project: The position is part of ReDyslexia funded by ERANET-NEURON (https://www.neuron-eranet.eu/projects/ReDyslexia/). ReDyslexia is a research consortium of neuroscientists and clinicians that have the aim (1) to better understand sensory pathway dysfunction in developmental dyslexia, and (2) to directly use this knowledge for improving treatment strategies. ReDyslexia includes studies in humans with developmental dyslexia as well as experiments in animal models. Tasks: The task involves (i) using a neuroimaging and behaviour database to assess sensory pathway dysfunction in dyslexia during childhood development, (ii) employing neurostimulation, neuroimaging, and behavioural measurements to assess and establish novel treatment approaches in adult dyslexics, and (iii) collaborating with clinicians and wet-lab neuroscientists to develop common experimental paradigms across different developmental stages and species The setting: TU Dresden is one of eleven German Universities of Excellence. It provides an outstanding scientific infrastructure and ideal environment for interdisciplinary cooperation. Developmental neuroimaging projects will be conducted in collaboration with Dr. R. Bethlehem (University of Cambridge, https://www.autismresearchcentre.com/staff/richard-bethlehem/). Experiments will be performed at the Neuroimaging Centre (NIC, http://www.nic-tud.de). The NIC is equipped with a research-only MRI machine (Siemens 3T Prisma), MRI-compatible EEG, eye-tracking and noise-cancellation headphones, and a neurostimulation unit including TMS, tDCS, and tFUS. All experimental facilities are supported by experienced physics and IT staff. For computational work, there is access to the Centre for Information Services and High Performance Computing at TU Dresden. The TU Dresden Graduate Academy offers a comprehensive training programme and individual career advice for early career researchers (https://tu-dresden.de/ga?set_language=en). Applications from women are particularly welcome. The same applies to people with disabilities. Contact for Questions: For questions about the position please contact Prof. Dr. Katharina von Kriegstein (katharina.von_kriegstein@tu-dresden.de). Application instruction: Please submit your complete application including (a cover letter that briefly describes your personal qualifications and future research interests, CV, contact details of 2 personal references, and 1-2 publications as PDF for postdocs) by sending it as a single PDF document preferably via the TU Dresden SecureMail Portal https://securemail.tu-dresden.de (subject: ReDyslexia2022) to julia.herdin@tu-dresden.de or by mail to: TU Dresden, Fakultät Psychologie, Institut für Allgemeine Psychologie, Biopsychologie und Methoden der Psychologie, Professur für Kognitive und Klinische Neurowissenschaft, Prof. Katharina von Kriegstein, Helmholtzstr. 10, 01069 Dresden. The deadline for applications is February 23, 2022 (stamped arrival date of the university central mail service applies). Please submit copies only, as your application will not be returned to you.

This project aims to explore the adaptation of large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, to study their potential in understanding human language and identifying associated pathologies. By focusing on advanced neurocomputational models and the use of functional MRI, this work aims to decipher linguistic representations and their individual variations, particularly in pathological contexts such as dyslexia.

Efficient cognition requires flexible interactions between distributed neural networks in the human brain. These networks adapt to challenges by flexibly recruiting different regions and connections. In this talk, I will discuss how we study functional network plasticity and reorganization with combined neurostimulation and neuroimaging across the adult life span. I will argue that short-term plasticity enables flexible adaptation to challenges, via functional reorganization. My key hypothesis is that disruption of higher-level cognitive functions such as language can be compensated for by the recruitment of domain-general networks in our brain. Examples from healthy young brains illustrate how neurostimulation can be used to temporarily interfere with efficient processing, probing short-term network plasticity at the systems level. Examples from people with dyslexia help to better understand network disorders in the language domain and outline the potential of facilitatory neurostimulation for treatment. I will also discuss examples from aging brains where plasticity helps to compensate for loss of function. Finally, examples from lesioned brains after stroke provide insight into the brain’s potential for long-term reorganization and recovery of function. Collectively, these results challenge the view of a modular organization of the human brain and argue for a flexible redistribution of function via systems plasticity.

Recent insights from auditory neuroscience provide a new perspective on how the brain encodes speech. Using these recent insights, I will provide an overview of key factors underpinning individual differences in children’s development of language and phonology, providing a context for exploring atypical reading development (dyslexia). Children with dyslexia are relatively insensitive to acoustic cues related to speech rhythm patterns. This lack of rhythmic sensitivity is related to the atypical neural encoding of rhythm patterns in speech by the brain. I will describe our recent data from infants as well as children, demonstrating developmental continuity in the key neural variables.

How do children learn to read in different countries? How do deficits in various components of the reading network affect learning outcomes? What are the consequences of such deficits in different languages? In this talk, I will present a full-blown developmentally plausible computational model of reading acquisition that has been implemented in English, French, Italian and German. The model can simulate individual learning trajectories and intervention outcomes on the basis of three component skills: orthography, phonology, and vocabulary. I will use the model to show how cross-language differences affect the learning-to-read process in different languages and to investigate to what extent similar deficits will produce similar or different manifestations of dyslexia in different languages.