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Research Technician II - Anesthesiology

Washington University in St. Louis · US

Scheduled Hours 40 Position Summary The Creed lab in the Department of Anesthesiology seeks a Research Technician to join our team! Chronic pain afflicts ove...

Job description

Scheduled Hours 40 Position Summary: The Creed lab in the Department of Anesthesiology seeks a Research Technician to join our team! Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the population, and is characterized by affective symptoms (anhedonia, apathy and depressed mood) that negatively impact pain management. Research in our lab seeks to understand the basis for these affective symptoms. We focus on synaptic plasticity within genetically-defined neural circuits in the basal ganglia and thalamocortical networks. We combine patch clamp and in vivo electrophysiology, RNA-sequencing, biophysical modeling of neurons and computational models of behavior to understand how chronic pain and opioid analgesics alters plasticity in neural circuits, and how changes in these neural circuits drive negative affect and changes in cognition. We seek to translate (and back translate!) results of our findings. Our ultimate goal is to use these insights to develop novel neuromodulation therapies to treat affective and cognitive symptoms of chronic pain disorders. The successful candidate will assist with behavioral and physiology experiments across multiple collaborative projects in the lab, and assist with...