Jimmie Gmaz
Research Scientist
Education
PhD in Psychological and Brain Sciences, 2021
Dartmouth College - Hanover, New Hampshire, USA
Thesis: Dynamic coding of motivationally-relevant information in the rodent nucleus accumbens.
MSc in Behavioural Neuroscience, 2013
Wilfrid Laurier University - Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Thesis: The effects of toluene on inhibitory synaptic transmission in the cerebellar cortex.
BSc in Psychology, 2011
Wilfrid Laurier University - Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Minors in Biology and Chemistry
Thesis: Modulation of synaptic transmission at the perforant path-dentate gyrus synapse.
Additional Training
Crick Innovation Challenge, July 2024 - Crick Science Entrepreneur Network
NeuroTech Commercialization Workshop, February 2024 - University of Minnesota
Cleveland NeuroDesign Entrepreneurs Workshop, September 2023 - Case Western Reserve University
Resilient Leadership in Action, March 2023 - Resilient Leaders Elements
Course in Computational Neuroscience, July 2020 - Neuromatch Academy
Skills
Experimental - Experimental design, rats, mice, electrophysiology, behaviour, stereotaxic surgery, hardware, animal husbandry, histology
Data Science - Signal processing, wrangling, visualization, regression, PCA, decoding, classification, spike-field, Matlab, Python, GitHub
General - Project management, problem solving, communication, teamwork, mentorship, technical writing
Professional Experience
Postdoctoral Research Scientist
Imperial College London - London, England, UK - September 2021 to Present
I am currently doing postdoctoral work in Juan Gallego’s group at Imperial College London, where I am involved in experimental and data science projects related to neural interfaces, BCIs, and the neuroscience of motor control. This work involves:
Piloting an experimental protocol for a mouse BCI task.
Developing Python data preprocessing, visualization, analysis and decoding pipelines to understand relationships between populations of neurons and kinematics.
Validating a novel µECoG array in a terminal mouse model.
Establishing mouse electrophysiology procedures, including designing experiments, animal colony management, generating experimental and surgical SOPs, neural data collection, training lab personnel, and building relationships with veterinary and support staff.
Writing a perspective on isolating the functional contributions of individual brain regions in motor control.
Mentoring trainees on data analysis projects using machine learning techniques to investigate relationships between neural signals and behaviour.
Doctoral Research Scientist
Dartmouth College - Hanover, New Hampshire, USA - 2015 to 2021
I completed my PhD at Dartmouth College in the lab of Matthijs van der Meer where I sought to integrate classical notions of the nucleus accumbens as a value- and motivation-centric region, with more contemporary evidence suggesting a role in certain aspects of behavioural flexibility. I started this work at the University of Waterloo in 2013 before moving to Darmouth in 2015. Some of my work experience includes:
Designing, collecting, analyzing, and interpreting 3 primary datasets consisting of extracellular electrophysiological recordings during performance of freely-moving (rats) or head-fixed (mice) behaviours.
Data collection for various projects involving managing animal colonies, setting up experimental hardware, establishing behavioural tasks, writing Matlab scripts for experiment control, building and implanting electrode arrays, acquiring simultaneous behavioural and electrophysiology data, and performing histology on brain tissue.
Data processing of various neural datasets in Matlab, including spike sorting, artifact detection in spiking and local field potential data, and filtering local field potentials into frequency bands of interest.
Cross-validated data analysis of various datasets in Matlab, including relating neural activity to behaviour with z-scores, t-tests, linear regressions, GLMs, LDA, binomial regressions, and demixed PCA; relating oscillatory activity to spiking activity with spike-field metrics such as spike-triggered spectrum and pairwise-phase consistency; and comparing all analyses to shuffled versions of the data.
Disseminating research findings to the broader scientific community via writing manuscripts for peer-reviewed publications and presenting posters at professional conferences.
Assisting in the data collection of local field potentials and spike-field analysis of 2 other datasets.
Mentoring undergraduate students on animal behaviour, and on using Matlab for both experimental control and extracting task-related neural activity.
Leading laboratory sections for a senior undergraduate systems neuroscience course, focusing on understanding neural circuits via sheep brain dissections, and animal behaviour via various behavioural assays.
Data collection and student training for a pilot experiment integrating extracellular recordings and fiber photometry, as part of assisting the 2019 mouse striatum module of the Marine Biological Laboratory’s Neural Systems and Behavior course.
Research Scientist
Wilfrid Laurier University - Waterloo, Ontario, Canada - 2009 to 2013
I started my research career with Bruce McKay at Wilfrid Laurier University where I completed my BSc and MSc theses. Here, I investigated the effects of the abused solvent toluene on various aspects of neural function. I was involved in a number of projects, including:
Designing, collecting, analysing, and interpreting (SPSS, Excel) data for a patch clamp electrophysiology experiment, an extracellular electrophysiology experiment, and a behavioural pharmacology experiment in rats.
Assisting tissue processing for an immediate early gene histology experiment.
Publications
Awards
Alexander Graham Bell CGS - 2013 to 2016
Medal of Academic Excellence (MSc Thesis) - 2013
Ontario Graduate Scholarship - 2011 to 2013
Last updated September 2024