CALL FOR APPLICATIONS:
ENSN 'Mini-NeuroSchool' on Social Neuroscience and Neuroimaging

Hosted by the Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna &
The MR Centre of Excellence, Medical University of Vienna, Austria

We are pleased to announce the second interdisciplinary ‘NeuroSchool’ of the European Neuroscience and Society Network, a five year programme involving leading neuroscientists and social scientists from eleven European countries in collaborative research and debate. This mini-NeuroSchool is a three day event co-hosted by the ENSN, the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Vienna and the MR Centre of Excellence, Medical University of Vienna. Please see our short description (.doc) for additional details.

The topic of this year’s mini-NeuroSchool is social neuroscience and functional neuroimaging.  Developments in functional imaging have revealed neurofunctional correlates of various behavioural traits, subjective states and experiences, and diagnoses or pathologies. At the same time, they have given origin to new ways of representing them and have created new ‘objects’ (e.g., functional brain images, hyperactive or hypoactive brain areas, discussion on localisation vs. neuronal networks) that reify these different ways of thinking about human behaviour, diagnoses and experiences. Neuroscientific objects and ways of thinking thus shuttle between the social context and the laboratory. The aim of the “mini-neuroschool” would be to assess the rigour and precision of current methodologies and the limitations of experimentation in modern neuroimaging – and to discuss its contextualisation in contemporary society, the uses and practices to which it is put, and the way in which this science affects policy and everyday life. 

 The school is open to graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in the disciplines of biology, neuroscience, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology and history/philosophy of science. Applicants will be selected on the basis of their merit, research interests and aspirations; applicants are required to submit a short draft proposal for a study using neuroimaging that locates the issue to be explored in a social context (for details see application form). Successful candidates will be invited to spend three days at the MC Centre of Excellence of the Medical University of Vienna and facilities of the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Vienna to attend seminars, participate in laboratory ‘practicals’ and focus groups, observe in scanning sessions from design to analysis, and to engage in the development of their own prospective neuroimaging experiment (see application form for details).  Lectures will cover the contemporary history of neuroimaging, the latest scientific evidence in the field, and well as the history and sociology of psychotropic drugs. 

All attendees will be fully reimbursed for travel and accommodation expenses.

Tutors and lecturers include Nikolas Rose (BIOS, London School of Economics), Andreas Roepstroff (Aarhus University, Denmark), and Edward Moser (MR Centre of Excellence).

To apply for the ENSN NeuroSchool, please download the project description and application form and email your contact details, personal statement, and draft neuroscience study to ensn@lse.ac.uk by February 20th, 2009. We endeavour to respond to all applicants by the end of February 2009.

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