Student projects

Thesis projects for MSc and bachelor students in neuroscience, pharmacology and biology. All of them build on bioluminescence oxygen imaging in awake mice and can be shaped around your interests.

Three thesis projects

01

Physical activity and brain oxygen: how does locomotion reshape hypoxic pockets?

Hypoxic pockets are brief, local drops in cortical oxygen that occur in the healthy brain and become less frequent when mice run. This project uses bioluminescence oxygen imaging in awake, head-fixed mice to ask how running, rest and transitions between them change the number, size and duration of hypoxic pockets.

What you will learn

In vivo widefield imaging in awake mice, behavioural tracking, time-series and image analysis in Python or MATLAB, and how to design and analyse a within-animal experiment.

02

Mapping hypoxic pockets onto the cortical vasculature

Hypoxic pockets recur at the same locations. This project combines oxygen imaging with blood-flow imaging to map where pockets arise in relation to arterioles, capillaries and venules, and to test whether their position in the vascular network predicts how deep and how long they are.

What you will learn

Multimodal in vivo imaging, vessel segmentation and image registration, spatial statistics, and how to build a reproducible analysis pipeline.

03

Inflammation and the brain's oxygen supply

Systemic inflammation doubles the frequency of hypoxic pockets within a day. This project quantifies how an inflammatory challenge changes pocket dynamics over time and how quickly the cortex returns to baseline, using oxygen imaging and blood-flow measurements.

What you will learn

Longitudinal in vivo imaging, experimental design with repeated measures, statistics for time courses, and critical reading of the neuroinflammation literature.

Who can apply

The projects suit MSc theses in neuroscience, pharmacology or biology and can be adapted for bachelor projects with a stronger analysis focus.

Prerequisite

A FELASA course in laboratory animal science, or the willingness to complete it before the experimental phase.

How to get in touch

Email me with a few lines on which project interests you, your study programme and when you would like to start.

Email Felix