PhD: How taste is encoded in the brain of caterpillars & butterflies Wageningen University & Research in Netherlands

Wageningen University & Research is offering a fully funded PhD position in insect neurobiology, sensory ecology, and insect-plant coevolution. The project will investigate how specialist caterpillars and butterflies encode plant taste in the brain and use chemical cues to recognize host plants. Using cabbage white butterflies ( Pieris spp.) as a model system, the researcher will compare gustatory coding between closely related species and between caterpillar and adult life stages. The work focu...

Wageningen University & Research is offering a fully funded PhD position in insect virology in the Insect Virology group of the Laboratory of Virology, Wageningen, Netherlands. The project examines how covert virus infections in insect hosts influence baculovirus-induced manipulation of caterpillar behaviour, including hyperactivity and climbing before death. The PhD researcher will compare behavioural manipulation across related and distantly related baculoviruses and lepidopteran hosts, invest...

Amsterdam UMC is offering a PhD position in spatial proteomics and neurodegeneration , focused on understanding how cell-type vulnerability and resilience contribute to frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The PhD researcher will design and perform proteomics studies using human postmortem FTD brain tissue and patient-derived iPSC neuronal cultures. The project will employ innovative single-cell, spatial proteomics, and other omics technologies to investigate molecular and cellular dysfunction, cell-s...

Radboud University is advertising a PhD position in multisynaptic plasticity in dendrites . The project sits in neuroscience and biology , with a focus on dendritic plasticity and neurophysiology. The post is shared by Corette Wierenga , Professor of Neurophysiology at Radboud University, who appears to be the academic contact for the opening. The announcement explicitly says that early postdocs are welcome to apply , but the opening itself is a PhD position . No funding details, stipend amount,...

This PhD project explores how baculoviruses manipulate caterpillar behaviour and how that manipulation is shaped by the broader viral context of the host. The work starts with comparing behavioural effects across closely and more distantly related baculoviruses and lepidopteran hosts, then moves to testing how the insect virome influences those outcomes. The project asks fundamental questions about parasite-host interactions and the concept of the extended phenotype, with a particular emphasis o...