Postdoctoral Fellowship in Spinal Mechanisms of Motor Control – Cell-Type & Circuit Function

UHN is Canada’s #1 hospital and the world’s #1 publicly funded hospital. With 10 sites and more than 44,000 TeamUHN members, UHN consists of Toronto General Hospital, Toronto Western Hospital, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, The Michener Institute of Education and West Park Healthcare Centre. As Canada's top research hospital, the scope of biomedical research and complexity of cases at UHN have made it a national and international source for discovery, education and patient care. UHN has the largest hospital-based research program in Canada, with major research in neurosciences, cardiology, transplantation, oncology, surgical innovation, infectious diseases, genomic medicine and rehabilitation medicine. UHN is a research hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto.

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Position Summary

Our nervous system has evolved to control behavior and networks of cells distributed in many different brain regions are dedicated to motor planning, learning, and execution. But to drive the body and enact behavior, nearly all of these signals must converge on the spinal cord. Here, a diverse array of neural populations work together, integrating streams of descending and sensory signals and then transforming this information into coordinated patterns of muscle contractions. What is the internal logic of this essential process? What are the key neural computations and how are they carried out by the cell types and circuits of the cord? The Levine lab seeks to answer these questions by characterizing the neural components of the spinal cord, probing how specific elements contribute to motor control in mice, and bringing the resulting discoveries to advance human health.

We are seeking a postdoctoral fellow to investigate how specific spinal cord cell types and sensory elements contribute to behavior in mice. This work will also test the links between cell type identify, connectivity, and function by bringing together several powerful approaches including circuit tracing, cell-type specific manipulation, closed-loop optogenetics, and quantitative behavioral tracking. There is significant opportunity to co-design and lead projects.

Duties