Fall, 2024
Congrats to lab manager Sanikaa Thakurdesai on her first academic presentation (2024 SfN at Chicago), showcasing a lesion-symptom mapping study on the medial temporal lobe's role in visual short-term memory precision. One of the perks of Sanikaa’s first presentation as a Trainee Professional Development Awardee — she also got to try hot pot for the first time!
Building on Dr. John Wittig Jr.'s foundational research in human single-unit recordings, we teamed up with Dr. Kareem Zaghloul and NINDS colleagues to demonstrate that neurons in the anterior temporal lobe encode semantic information across a representational hierarchy through neuronal sequences in population spiking bursts. This neural code complements the traditional spike rate-based code, suggesting that the human brain uses multiple codes to achieve remarkable computational efficiency. Coming soon in Nature!
Summer, 2024
Congratulations to our lab manager, Sanikaa Thakurdesai, for receiving the 2024 Trainee Professional Development Award from the Society for Neuroscience! An outstanding achievement for an early-career researcher—we’re incredibly proud! Look forward to her presentation in October at Chicago!
Welcome Jack Farley as our newest full-time postbac data analyst! Jack joins us after undergraduate training in Math and Computer Science from Duke University. While the summer heat in the DMV might be just as intense as what he's used to in North Carolina, at least he won't have to adjust to a new kind of humidity!
Spring, 2024
Congrats to Nathan Wang, a former summer student, on his admission to the MD/PhD program at the University of Pennsylvania! 🎉"
Congrats to Visiting Scholar, Chaoxiong Ye! 🎉 His paper with us on visual memorability is now accepted by Cognition. 📝 Well done!
Welcome visiting scholars from Finland!
Chaoxiong Ye: Finland Academy Research Fellow at University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Qianru Xu: Postdoc researcher at Stanford University and University of Oulu, Finland
Welcoming new members in the new semester
Sanikaa Thakurdesai : Lab manager and full-time research assistant, joining us from University of South Florida
Xinchi Yu: Current 4th year graduate student in the NACS program & Department of Linguistic., collaborating with us on projects about visual and conceptual aspects of working memory.
Winter, 2024
In memory of Robert Rosenthal (Bob, 03/02/1933 - 01/05/2024). 🕊️ Deeply saddened by the loss of our mentor & friend, Bob. A beloved father and grandfather, a devoted husband, a stellar scholar, a pillar in our discipline, and a true Pygmalion in the classroom. Bob was a living giant. We're privileged & humbled to have been his students in the past decade. Even in his final days, he helped build our lab, sharing wisdom from generations of esteemed scholars. We're committed to carrying on his legacy with gratitude for the vibrant spirit he brought into our lives. Shine on, Bob! 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Fall, 2023
September break: Trip to Egypt and China.
Recruiting full-time research assistant/lab manager as well as graduate student researchers. Some tips in graduate school application are available here
Attended Society for Neuroscience conference in Washington, DC.
Summer, 2023
Attended the Focused Ultrasound Neuromodulation Conference 2023 at Stanford University in July. Learn about the new and exciting neuromodulation technologies.
Presented my single-unit data at the summer school of the Center for Neuroengineering at Georgetown University in June. Very much enjoyed the interesting lectures and discussions!
Congrats for my former trainees: Audrey Phan, a NIH postbac working directly with me in the past 2 years, is going to Harvard-MIT MD/PhD joint program soon! Her paper has just been submitted as well. Way to go! Nathan Wang, my summer student last year from John Hopkins has been awarded with the prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. Look forward to hearing more exciting news from them in the future!
We are very pleased to be joined by Jenna Langbein, a medical student from Virginia Commonwealth University, to serve as our research coordinator at University of Maryland School of Medicine. Welcome Jenna!
Presented at VSS, FL in May. A lot of interesting and exciting new stuff!
Presented at Learning and Memory Conference in California in May. Visited Weiwei Zhang and the legendary Bob Rosenthal in his 90s!
Spring, 2023
Honored to share my research journey, training, goals, and mentorship philosophy with NINDS intramural training programs. Committed to providing the best support possible to future trainees. [See report here].
Congrats to Lilian Azer from UC Riverside for publishing an important study on aging and cognitive control at Psychology and Aging. It is our first aging-related paper with in-person data collection from older adults. Glad that it finally comes out!
Our paper on the contribution of the entorhinal-DG/CA3 pathway to visual working/short-term memory is now available in eLife.
Our paper on the causal contribution of the medial temporal lobe to visual short-term memory precision is online at Nature Human Behaviour. See our blog about this article for more information at the Nature Publishing Group.
Our paper on the top-down effect of conceptual association on early visual perception (as early as the pupil level!) is now available in Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
Winter, 2022
Supported by the Accelerated Translational Incubator Pilot (ATIP) Award, from the Institute for Clinical & Translational Research of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, we are working to initiate a new Cognitive Neurophysiology research program in Maryland!
Awarded with the NIH Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00). Extremely grateful for the strong support from the NIH! Very excited to launch my lab soon! Please see a press lease from NINDS.
Our paper on the effortfulness of visual working memory is now accepted by Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. It was a very fun project to work on!
Fall, 2022
The collaborative project on sleep and neurocognitive development in early adolescence with Drs. Nils Fan Yang & Ze Wang from the University of Maryland School of Medicine has been accepted by The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. see Press release.
The meta-analysis project on negative emotion and visual working memory precision with Dr. Chaoxiong Ye (University of Jyvaskyla) and Dr. Weiwei Zhang (UC Riveriside) has been accepted by Emotion.