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De Zeeuw Lab

Department                            Neuroscience

Principal investigator         Laurens Bosman

E-mail address                     l.bosman@erasmusmc.nl

Website                                 https://neuro.nl/person/Laurens-Bosman

 

Swallow this one

Suitable as a BEP? Yes

Suitable as a MEP? Yes

Suitable as an Academic Research Project? No

Techniques:

  • EMG recordings
  • Acoustic recordings
  • Machine Learning

If you would make a list of all your amazing skills, on which place would you put swallowing? Good chance that you underestimate the importance of swallowing.

Dysphagia, the inability to swallow properly, as a large impact on the quality of life and can even be life threatening. Yet, the neurobiology of
swallowing is relatively poorly understood. Will you contribute to our knowledge of this important topic?

Further reading (click to link to article)

https://elifesciences.org/articles/83654

Manifolds as way to uncover hidden patterns in the brain

Suitable as a BEP? No

Suitable as a MEP? Yes

Suitable as an Academic Research Project? No

Techniques:

  • Extraction of salient features from neuronal recordings (PCA, manifold analysis, neural networks)
  • Video analysis of mouse behavior
  • Coding (Python or MATLAB)
  • Optional: Mouse behavioral training

Your brain reacts to everything that you experience. Over the last years, we have been getting better and better in understanding the neural code with which the brain (and in particular the cerebellum) processes sensory and motor information. As our recording methods improve, new analysis methods are required to process increasingly more neural data. In this project, we will explore different dimension reductions approaches and machine learning to uncover hidden patterns in brain activity

Further reading (click to link to article)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37981-0

(Example) projects submitted by lab in past years

(2024-2025) It is in the brain, but I cannot see it. Can you?

Supervisor: Laurens Bosman, l.bosman@erasmusmc.nl

In the cerebellum, everything that happens in the brain comes together: from processing sensory input to making plans, and from muscle coordination to emotion. How can neurons of the cerebellum encode such a variety of data streams? Can you reveal hidden patterns?

Techniques

  • For BEP and MEP:
    • Extraction of salient features from neuronal recordings (PCA, manifold analysis, neural networks)
    • Video analysis of mouse behavior
    • Coding (Python or MATLAB)
  • For MEP (optional):
    • Mouse behavioral training
    • In vivo electrophysiology in trained mice

Further reading

Multidimensional cerebellar computations for flexible kinematic control of movements

(2024-2025) You will never walk alone

Supervisor: Laurens Bosman, l.bosman@erasmusmc.nl

Every step you make is like a piece of art, and requires quite some effort from your brain. This is most likely not a problem for you, but for elderly people, walking and keeping balance are getting more and more difficult. Falls and resultant bone fractions cause a major loss of quality of life. Apart from normal aging, walking is also compromised in many diseases, muscular as well as neurological. To walk, your brain needs to integrate sensory input and motor output, and this is a computationally heavy task requiring the cooperation of multiple brain regions. Will you join our lab in decoding the information processing shared by multiple brain regions?

Techniques

  • BEP/MEP:
    • Machine learning / pattern recognition
  • MEP:
    • Optional: behavioral experiments (in mice or patients)

Further reading

Different Purkinje cell pathologies cause specific patterns of progressive gait ataxia in mice