We are happy to host students from EPFL and other Universities for projects and internships.
If you are interested in working on a project or doing an internship in our laboratory, please apply as follows: Please send an e-mail to the responsible of the project with Caroline Magnin ([email protected]) and Lisa Fleury ([email protected]) in cc.
Please provide the following information in the e-mail:
- Which project type are you interested in (e.g. bachelor project)?
- In which University program are you enrolled and what year are you in (e.g. 3rd year bachelor student in SV)?
- How long does this type of project usually last and how many ECTS credits do you receive for it (e.g. 3 weeks full-time, 6 ECTS credits)?
- What are the deadlines and presentation modes for the project (e.g. presentation during project and written report afterwards)?
- In what period would you like to perform the project in our laboratory (e.g. 1st of May until 19th of May 2022, full-time)?
- What are your main interests (e.g. healthy aging)?
Please attach your CV and your motivation letter.
After reviewing your application, we will contact you via e-mail regarding further details.
Students from external universities will further need
- Two letters of recommendation
- Funding information
Be aware that, due to extensive administrative paperwork, external only projects lasting at least 6 months will be considered for external students. Further be aware that you might need to meet further administrative requirements (e.g. visum, insurance). You will find information to processes and detailed requirements at: http://sae.epfl.ch/exchange-incoming. Please note that our lab is located in the cantons of Geneva and Valais, NOT Vaud (where the main campus is located). In that sense, the visa/residence permits will have to be dealt with in Geneva or Valais respectively.
IMPORTANT: Please note that our laboratory is located at the Clinique Romande de Réadaptation (CRR/SUVA) in Sion as well as at Campus Biotech in Geneva, Switzerland. All of the projects/internships will therefore be taking place in Sion or in Geneva respectively.
Non-invasive neuromodulation of the striatum for the treatment of apathy
Availability
Spring 2024 / Fall 2024
Keywords
Non-invasive brain stimulation, apathy, striatum, temporal interference
Location
Main: Campus Biotech, Geneva
Profile
Master Project
Contact
Objective
Apathy is a transdiagnostic syndrome of impaired motivation which has a large impact on quality of life and is extremely prevalent in a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders including traumatic brain injury (61%), Alzheimer’s disease (49%), Parkinson’s disease (40%) and stroke (36%). Apathetic patients typically exhibit a reduced willingness to expend effort to obtain rewards, a behavior that we can precisely characterize in the lab through effort-based decision-making tasks (see Husain and Roiser, 2018, Nat Rev Neurosci).
A promising approach for the treatment of apathy is neuromodulation of the striatum, a brain region that is crucial for motivated behavior and exhibits abnormal neural activity in apathy. We will target the striatum by means of transcranial temporal interference stimulation (tTIS, see Wessel, Beanato et al., 2023, Nat Neurosci), a new, non-invasive deep brain stimulation approach to target brain areas located deep in the brain, while participants perform an effort-based decision-making task.
Combining subjective and objective evaluation of motivation, computational modelling of behavior, analysis of eye movements and pupil dynamics and modelling of electric fields on individual MRIs, we intend to obtain a comprehensive understanding of striatal neuromodulation effects on motivated behavior in healthy participants and patients suffering from apathy. Our ultimate goal is to test the effectiveness of the approach towards clinical translation.
Duration
≥ 4 months
Important prerequisites
- Good data analysis and visualization skills (Matlab)
- Independence, motivation and curiosity
- Ability to conduct experiments with patients
Additional competencies
- Good statistical knowledge
- Fluent French in speech
- Interest in computational modelling and/or analysis of movement kinematics (e.g., through markerless pose estimation)
How to apply
If you are interested and fulfill these criteria, please send your CV and a statement of your motivation to Simona Losacco ([email protected]).
Implementation of a 2D pose estimation toolkit to assess the kinematics of individual finger movements
Availability
Spring 2024
Keywords
pose estimation, motor control, kinematics
Location
Campus Biotech, Geneva
Profile
Semester project
Contact
Objective
Marker-less pose estimation allows to analyze movement kinematics in participants or patients performing experimental tasks or rehabilitation. Here, we want to develop a pipeline to track movement kinematics while healthy participants and patients perform motor tasks in the laboratory. The main aim of this semester’s project is to implement a 2D pose estimation toolkit to track the poses of participants’ hands during a motor task. Python libraries such as Deeplabcut or RTMPose will be implemented to analyze the kinematics of the hand during the task. Hence, the semester project will have two major aims 1) Integration of the camera system in the current experimental set-ups (incl. generating triggers to epoch the video data, synchronize multiple cameras, etc.); 2) Extract finger kinematics from previously acquired videos.
Duration
≥4 months; Semester project
Prerequisites
The candidate is expected to have good computational skills (Matlab, Python), and an interest in motor research and kinematics. Applicant must show scientific curiosity and a good level of independence to familiarize with the framework and conduct the analyses. Participation in data acquisition is also possible.
How to apply
Please send your CV and a 300 words statement of your motivation to Thomas Paul (see Contact).
Muscle synergies obtained from transcranial magnetic stimulation
Availability
Spring 2024 / Fall 2024
Keywords
TMS, Muscle synergy, NMF, electromyography, stroke recovery, motor control
Location
Campus Biotech, Geneva
Profile
Master Project preferably (Semester project also possible)
Contact
Objective
The long-standing question in the field of motor control is how the central nervous system generates complex and adaptable movements. There is certainly a debate whether a large degree of freedom is a problem (i.e., motor redundancy). Along with this, it is a well-established notion that movements can be divided into and viewed as structural units, which are termed as synergies. In the context of an ongoing project, characteristics of muscle synergies obtained from transcranial magnetic stimulation are investigated using non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) on electromyography (EMG) data. The candidate will establish a series of analyses using the muscle synergy approach to develop a novel framework (and analytical pipeline) to study the human motor system. Ultimately, we aim at applying the method on longitudinal data from stroke patients to probe their residual motor function and/or course of recovery.
Duration
≥4 months
Prerequisites
The candidate is expected to have good computational skills (on Matlab) and having an interest in motor research.
How to apply
Please send your CV and a 300 words statement of your motivation to Takuya Morishita (see Contact).
Information-theoretic approaches to uncover mechanisms of motor control in health and disease
Availability
Spring 2023 / Fall 2023
Keywords
motor control, motor learning, information-theoretic approaches, data analysis
Location
Campus Biotech, Geneva
Profile
Master Project preferably (Semester project also possible)
Contact
Objective
Motor control and learning processes are fundamental in daily life (such as when driving a car, using a smartphone or controlling a human-machine interface) and are impaired in a series of neurological disorders including following a stroke. Better understanding how movements can be controlled and learned with practice is therefore of crucial importance not only to elucidate one of the most basic brain function but also to improve motor recovery after neurological injury and optimize the use of human machine interfaces.
Interestingly, even the execution of very simple movements involves the operation of multiple motor control processes. One key mechanism is based on feedback: it uses different sources of information from the environment (sensory information but also information about task success) to appropriately correct ongoing movements. Another key mechanism is based on feedforward processes, it optimizes movements with predictions based on regularities of the environment. Interestingly, recent information-theoretic approaches allow to disentangle these two processes during motor control (Lam & Zenon, 2021, Entropy).
In this project, the goal will be to apply such information-theoretic techniques on a large dataset (n>100) in which human participants (both healthy subjects and stroke patients) learned a visuomotor tracking task. The ultimate aim of the project is to gain further insights into basic motor control mechanisms at play during human machine interactions and their alteration following a stroke.
Duration
3-6 months
Prerequisites
The candidate is expected to have good computational skills (in particular on Matlab), show scientific curiosity and a good level of independence to familiarize with the framework and conduct the analyses. Participation to data acquisition is also possible.
How to apply
Please send your CV and a 300 words statement of your motivation to Pierre Vassiliadis (see contacts).