Sensory sensitivity; causes, impact and relationships with dizziness, anxiety and other conditions.

Around 10% of the population appear to experience uncomfortably heightened sensitivity to lights, patterns, crowded scenes, noise, or even tastes and smells. In some people this directly impairs their daily life; for example, making it difficult to go shopping, interact with others or work in certain buildings.

The PhD project will investigate the causes and/or the impacts of sensory sensitivity, as well as why it appears to feature across a number of conditions, including anxiety, dizziness, autism, migraine and epilepsy. The exact project will be created in collaboration with you, the student.

In research to date, we have designed a new questionnaire and tasks to start understanding the components of visual sensitivity, we have investigated some of the connections across different senses (vision, hearing, touch etc), we have invented a computer game to help people de-sensitise to visual environments that trigger dizziness, and we have collected neuroimaging data to examine the excitation/inhibition in visual cortex and beyond. We are now ready to take these projects forward in one or more ways.

Home students are UK Nationals and EU students who can satisfy UK residency requirements (students must have been in the UK for >3 years before start of course).

As only a limited number of studentships are available across the Open School competition and a very high standard of applications is typically received, the successful applicants are likely to have a very good first degree (a First or Upper Second class BSc Honours or equivalent) and/or be distinguished by having relevant research experience.