Qualification Type: | PhD |
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Location: | Newcastle upon Tyne |
Funding for: | UK Students, EU Students |
Funding amount: | £17,668 - please see advert |
Hours: | Full Time |
Placed On: | 30th January 2023 |
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Closes: | 1st April 2023 |
Reference: | BI060 |
Award Summary
The PhD position covers full home tuition fees and an annual stipend (living expenses) of £17,668. Successful international candidates will be required to fund the difference between home and international fees.
Overview
Biological neural networks continually learn, interact and adapt their function to diverse and ever-changing environmental and behavioral demands. Neuromodulators, including dopamine, acetylcholine, serotonin, noradrenaline and histamine, through their diffuse release, regulate the function of biological neural networks to catalyze learning and boost adaptation to rapidly changing contexts. Although artificial neural networks (ANNs) have demonstrated their effectiveness in solving a spectrum of real-world tasks ranging from pattern recognition to autonomous driving vehicles, they remain ineffective in continual learning to execute simultaneous tasks and are prone to “catastrophic forgetting”, contrary to their biological analogues.
This PhD thesis will explore how neuromodulators impact the cellular and synaptic assembly of biological neural networks and implement principles in ANNs to enhance their learning capabilities towards overcoming catastrophic forgetting. The project will develop a computational framework to synthesize our understanding of neural hardware and use that to bridge the knowledge gap between biological neural networks and ANNs.
Applications are particularly invited from women and BAME candidates who are under-represented in postgraduate research at our institution.
Number of awards: 1
Start date: 18/09/2023
Award duration: The funding covers a three-year PhD
Sponsor: Newcastle University
Supervisors: Dr. Srikanth Ramaswamy
Eligibility criteria
We are looking for recent graduates with an academic background in any of the relevant disciplines who meet the following Essential Requirements
How to apply
To apply for a studentship, you must register and apply through the University’s Apply to Newcastle Portal
Once registered select ‘Create a Postgraduate Application’.
Use ‘Course Search’ to identify your programme of study:
You will then need to provide the following information in the ‘Further Questions’ section:
In addition, before you submit your application you will need to upload the following supporting documentation:
You will not be able to submit your application until you have submitted all required documents/information.
Contact details:
Dr. Srikanth Ramaswamy: srikanth.ramaswamy@newcastle.ac.uk
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