Subcellular thermometry and thermoregulation in neuronal circuits

Brain temperature is a fundamental modulator of neural function. Despite its critical role in health and disease this physiological parameter remains largely understudied. As climate change is exposing vulnerable populations with impaired thermoregulation to extreme heat, a deeper understanding of the brain’s thermal boundaries becomes urgent.

In neural prostheses, the heat dissipated upon electrical stimulation may inadvertently modulate neural activity. Even temperature changes of 1 degree transmitted through the electrode interface can cause transient suppression or excitation of neurons during the temperature change. Accounting for thermal effects during electrical current interactions with neurons will therefore lead to more accurate modulation of neuronal activity.

At subcellular level, intracellular thermometry has demonstrated that small local variations in temperature can facilitate or suppress neurite outgrowth and neuronal differentiation. These observations give more insights into thermal signaling mechanisms and potentially also pave the way for novel neural engineering approaches that harness thermal properties to guide tissue growth and function.

The goal of this PhD project is to develop novel tools for the subcellular observation and manipulation of temperatures. Our team has ample experience with brain-on-a-chip cultures which you will use to study the effects of temperature on neural function and differentiation. You will combine computational simulations with experimentation for design and validation of thermometry techniques. Because temperature also plays a key role for the entire human body, further valorization of the developed technology is possible for other organ on chip cultures and multi physiological systems that are developed within our team. Of note, such high precision thermometry technology, lends itself to use in other microfluidic applications such as thermal management of CMOS systems and thermal sensing in liquid cooling of microelectronics at submicron scale.

For this interdisciplinary project, you should have a background in biomedical engineering, engineering, physics or related fields. Experience in electrophysiology is considered a strong asset. You will be supervised and supported by a team of data/computer scientists, engineers and biologists at imec.

References:

Kim et al 2022 J. Neural Eng.

Yu et al 2021 Adv. Funct. Mat.

Chuma et al 2024 Nat. Comms.