The Institute of Neurosciences is the Maria de Maeztu excellence unit with most INPhINIT Incoming La Caixa doctoral grants in Spain

From left to right, the researchers Paula López, Rubén Perellón and Marta Silva.
From left to right, the researchers Paula López, Rubén Perellón and Marta Silva.
Institutional
(11/11/2019)

The Institute of Neurosciences of the UB (UBNeuro) is the Maria de Maeztu excellence unit with the highest number of awarded INPhINIT Incoming La Caixa doctoral grants in Spain within the 2019 call. Launched by La Caixa, the program of doctoral grants INPhINIT wants to promote scientific talent and high quality innovative research supporting doctoral studies in Spain and Portugal.

From left to right, the researchers Paula López, Rubén Perellón and Marta Silva.
From left to right, the researchers Paula López, Rubén Perellón and Marta Silva.
Institutional
11/11/2019

The Institute of Neurosciences of the UB (UBNeuro) is the Maria de Maeztu excellence unit with the highest number of awarded INPhINIT Incoming La Caixa doctoral grants in Spain within the 2019 call. Launched by La Caixa, the program of doctoral grants INPhINIT wants to promote scientific talent and high quality innovative research supporting doctoral studies in Spain and Portugal.

 

The new call has given a total of 32 grants to young researchers in the category of INPhINIT Incoming La Caixa fellowships, which wants to promote research in STEM disciplines -science, technology, engineering and medicine- in the field of research centers with the label Severo Ochoa or Maria de Maeztu, as well as in health research institutes Carlos III and Portuguese units with excellence accreditation. Also, under the category of INPhINIT Retaining, 16 grants have been awarded to researchers who will carry out their thesis project in any field of research in universities or research centers in Spain and Portugal.


In the frame of INPhINIT Incoming, young researchers Marta Silva, Paula López and Rubén Perellón will conduct their work in the Institute of Neurosciences (UBNeuro), a UB institute led by Professor Jordi Alberch, from the Department of Biomedicine at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.

 

Since 2018, UBNeuro has been distinguished as Maria de Maeztu excellence unit -an accreditation given by the Spanish State Research Agency- to honor its competitiveness, strategy plans, high quality scientific performance and the ability to attract national and international talent.  


Researcher Marta Silva will focus her INPhINIT fellowship on the study of the dynamics and formation of memory in real life, under the supervision of the expert Lluís Fuentemilla, lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology and member of the Cognition and Brain Plasticity Group of UBNeuro. Her study will explore the neuronal mechanisms that are involved in the formation of memories through new experimental designs and approaches based on computational techniques, a line that will help determine the origin of some deficiencies in this process and potential therapeutical strategies. 


PhD student Paula López will focus on the mechanisms associated with the reward process under the supervision of lecturer Josep Marco Pallarés, from the Faculty of Psychology and the Cognition and Brain Plasticity Group of UBNeuro. The doctoral study by Paula López focuses on the analysis of the role of dopamine and identifying oscillating mechanisms related to decision-taking based on the effort of healthy adults, so as to expand this study to clinical populations.


Rubén Perellón will carry out his doctoral thesis under the supervision of David Bartrés Faz, lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, member of UBNeuro and coordinator of Barcelona Brain Stimulation Lab. Within the field of neurosciences, Perellón has focused his activity on fields related to the clinical benefits of basic research, such as the study of mechanisms of brain plasticity underlying non-invasive stimulation therapy in disorders such as treatment-resistant depression.