Published online on October 10, 2019.

Neurospin offers a permanent position for an engineer (M/F) in charge of developing an imaging platform for brain cytoarchitecture.

NeuroSpin's methodological teams have been developing magnetic resonance imaging methods to probe the microstructure of brain tissue for over a decade. These methods use diffusion and quantitative MRI data to non-invasively map the cellular organization of the various regions of the brain and study their variability between regions or between individuals. Being able to perform these maps in vivo is of interest to neuroscientists from both a fundamental and clinical point of view. Indeed, being able to characterize in vivo the cytoarchitecture of the cerebral cortex should make it possible to better understand the correlates between anatomical substrate and brain functions, and thus better understand the origins of the variability of these functions between individuals, and thus develop new atlases of cytoarchitectonic areas on the cortex surface. In addition, being able to characterize in vivo the cellular organization of brain tissue is also an important advance that can be exploited in clinical research to better identify tissue changes occurring at the cellular level during the development of brain pathologies.

The team in charge of this transversal Cyto In Vivo research program is currently developing a webservice infrastructure that is required because it involves very large-scale digital simulations requiring high-performance computing performed within the Very Large Computing Centre (TGCC, Bruyères-le-Châtel), and machine learning techniques to learn the MRI signature of multiple cellular environments and then be able to recognize them, in order to provide NeuroSpin's imaging platform with a unique in vivo mapping service for the cytoarchitecture of the human brain.

The engineer position, on permanent contract, therefore aims to contribute to the development of this imaging platform for human brain cytorachitecture, which is structured around several missions:

 

  • the development of magnetic resonance imaging protocols for the microstructure on NeuroSpin's neuroimaging platform

  • the piloting of very large-scale simulation campaigns within the TGCC (Bruyères-le-Châtel) to create realistic dictionaries of virtual tissues representative of brain tissue and their MRI signatures using the MEDUSA simulator developed within the team

  • the development of methods for analysing the cytoarchitecture of brain tissue (cortex and white matter) using machine learning tools to extract individual maps,

  • the management and integration of the tools developed in the team in order to offer them through a web service that will be made available within the framework of the infrastructure currently being set up in close collaboration with the TGCC

  • training and support for users of this future platform

  • the supervision of trainees and the technical supervision of doctoral students.

The engineer (m/f) will work in direct contact with UNIRS physicists, UNATI signal and image processing experts, and will interact with clinical (UNIACT) or cognitive (UNICOG) researchers from the NeuroSpin department.

Download the complete profile here.
Application deadline: October 28, 2019.