Mapping selective cognitive changes in Huntington’s disease

Announcing an opportunity for a PhD student to work with individuals with Huntington’s disease (HD) on a cognitive mapping study. HD is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder that impacts on motor functioning, behavioural-emotional regulation, and cognitive functioning. Because of the importance of normal cognitive functioning for daily life, effective strategies that can understand and preserve cognitive function in patients with HD are critical. Imaging neuroscience can link brain activation maps to behaviour and cognition, and can be used to investigate various cognitive domains that are affected in HD. This project aims to develop various experimental cognitive paradigms to tap into and map affected cognitive domains in HD. Mapping these domains will allow us to design better strategies to help improve quality of life in HD. The student will be required to develop a number of experimental cognitive tasks and undertake neuropsychological testing in individuals with HD and age-matched healthy controls. A prospective PhD student interested in this opportunity must have outstanding undergraduate results, together with a strong first class Honours degree or postgraduate degree in psychology, clinical neuroscience or related disciplines and be competitive for a Monash scholarship. The student will be based within the Experimental Neuropsychology Research Unit, with supervision from Professor Nellie Georgiou-Karistianis and co-supervision from Dr Sharna Jamadar at the Monash Biomedical Imaging Facility.