Brain development in infants and its disruption by preterm birth or perinatal injury, can be measured with functional MRI (fMRI). Unfortunately, infants move in the scanner and half the images are discarded, precluding clinical application. In recent years, deep neural networks (DNNs) have led to breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and are finding growing application in biomedical imaging. DNNs have considerable potential to correct head motion in fMRI, as they can learn complex mappings, and exploit knowledge of brain structure.  The FreezeMotion project will develop DNNs to motion correct fMRI data.

Candidates must have expertise in at least one of the two following areas and must be willing to develop skills in the other:

  • design and optimisation of deep neural networks
  • neuroimaging

Candidates must have expertise in programming in python or another language.

FreezeMotion is a collaboration between Rhodri Cusack (Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin), Chen Qin (Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Imperial-X, Imperial College London), Mark Chiew (Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto) and Alex Bronstein (Computer Science, Technion).

The studentship comprises EU fees, a stipend, research materials, and conference travel. A waiver for non-EU fees may be possible for exceptional candidates.

See further details and application procedure

Deadline 12 noon on Sept 16, 2024