Kwok Lab Meetings
[Group meeting agenda] [Journal club papers 2023] [Full events list] [Lab log]
Kwok Lab holds lab meetings at 10:00 a.m. every Tuesday and Friday. if you are interested in attending the lab meeting, please contact Xufeng Zhou at zhouxufengwork@outlook.com.
Kunshan Government Research Fund for 2024-2025
June 20th, 2024
Our project, “Linking Neural Code and Replay Phenomenon in the Human Brain,” has been selected for a Kunshan Government Research Fund for the period 1 July 2024–30 June 2025. It will be part of a collaboration with the First People’s Hospital of Kunshan. Some preliminary work can be seen here.
Brainhub Neuroscience Research Seminar: Similarity Spaces
May 21st, 2024
Join us for a captivating presentation by Dr. Ali Moharramipour, Postdoctoral Researcher at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science, Japan, hosted by Dr. Sze Chai Kwok, where Dr. Moharramipour will delve into the intricacies of “Similarity Spaces in the Brain,” shedding light on their pivotal role in shaping human behavior. Through an in-depth exploration of an fMRI study, he will present methods for identifying these crucial spaces by taking advantage of the Repetition-Supression phenomenon. Don’t miss this enlightening session, taking place on Friday, May 24th, at 10:00 AM (GMT+8).
More details can be found in the poster below:
Former Post-doc fellow, Dr. Lei Wang, obtained a faculty position
May 8th, 2024
Our former post-doc fellow Dr Lei Wang has obtained the position of Assistant Professor at the Institute for translational neuroscience of the second affiliated hospital of Nantong University.
Congratulations!
Former Post-doc fellow, Dr Yudian Cai, obtained a faculty position
May 8th, 2024
Our former postdoc fellow Dr Yudian Cai has obtained the position of lecturer at East China University of Science and Technology.
Congratulations!
Best Poster Award at the 4th Annual Meeting of CNLM
January 11st, 2024
Our group PhD candidate, Jianhua Liu and Master’s student, Ning Su, attended the 4th annual meeting of the basic and clinical branch of learning and memory of Chinese Society of Neuroscience, which was held by CNS.
Jianhua presented her works entitled ‘Investigating Eye Movement Patterns in Three-Alternative Forced Choice Recognition Memory Paradigm in Rhesus Monkeys’, and was awarded the best poster award in the meeting.
Congrats
There and back again
August 5, 2023
Our former graduates Chenxi Zhai and Xuanlong Zhu re-joining our family again!
Chenxi will collaborate with Prof. Anna Wang Roe’s group and will be based in Zhejiang University and Xuanlong will continue his research work on memory and time decoding.
Welcome back! Cheers!
Kunshan Shortage Talent Program
August 5, 2023
Dr Sze Chai Kwok has won the Kunshan Shortage Talent Program, this 3-year program is to recognizing his continued efforts and impact in his of expertise within DKU.
Congrats!
Two poster talks at CNS & CJK 2023
July 28, 2023
Jing Cai and Xufeng Zhou presented their latest work as the titles “Sustained hippocampal theta-oscillations reflect experiencedependentlearning in backward temporal order memory retrieval” and “Exploring Functional Diversity in PEc Neurons using Single-Unit fMRI Mapping” at The 16th Annual Meeting of Chinese Neuroscience Society & The 2nd CJK International Meeting (CNS & CJK 2023).
Xufeng Zhou attended this meeting in person and showed his work as a poster talk.
Cheers!
Dr Sze Chai Kwok’s seminar at UCLA and UNAM campus Juriquilla
April 24, 2023
Dr Sze Chai Kwok was invited by Dr Alicia Izquierdo to give a seminar about our lab’s latest work at the department of psychology, UCLA on 1 May 2023.
Subsequently, he was also invited by Dr Eduardo A. Garza-Villarreal to give a plenary talk at the Institutional Seminar at the Institute of Neurobiology UNAM campus Juriquilla in Querétaro, México on 3 May, 2023.
You can check the details below.
Cheers!
Dr Sze Chai Kwok’s Talk at the LEARNMEM™2023
April 3, 2023
Dr Sze Chai Kwok is going to present our lab’s latest work with the title “Bidirectional hippocampal-cortical ripple dialogue during narrative generation and retrieval” at the 2023 International Conference on Learning and Memory.
Congrants!
Dr Lei Wang’s Talk at the 13th Primate Neurobiology Meeting
April 3, 2023
Dr Lei Wang is going to present his latest work with the title “Mixed coding of content-temporal detail by dorsomedial posterior parietal neurons” at the 13th Primate Neurobiology Meeting 2023, Goettingen, Germany.
Congrants!
Dr Yudian Cai’s Talk at the ASSC 26
April 3, 2023
Dr Yudian Cai is going to present his latest work with the title “Effects of metacognitive training on cortical morphometric plasticity in macaques” at the 26th annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC 26) at New York University.
Congrats!
Dr Sze Chai Kwok’s Talk on CNS2022
November 29, 2022
Dr Sze Chai Kwok presented our lab’s latest work as the title “Spatial locations memory search paths decoded by human hippocampal wide-band signals (and implicate)” on The 15th Annual Meeting of Chinese Neuroscience Societ (CNS 2022).
Congrats!
ECNU news about our new paper
August 16, 2022
East China Normal University (ECNU) published the news about our new paper on their homepage.
DKU news about our new paper
August 26, 2022
Duke Kunshan University (DKU) published the news about our new paper as the title: Research team finds mental state awareness in macaque monkeys, on their homepage.
New preprints
July 19, 2022
Our group member, Lei Wang, just published his new preprints, Mixed selectivity coding of content-temporal detail by dorsomedial posterior parietal neurons, on bioRxiv.
Check the graphic abstract below and you can check for an interactive intersection diagram by clicking on the graphic abstract.
Demonstration for dmPPC cell ensembles for their mixed selectivity coding
We revealed a set of neural codes of ‘neuroethogram’ in the primate parietal cortex. Analyzing neural responses in macaque dmPPC to naturalistic videos, we discovered several groups of neurons that are sensitive to categories of ethogram-items and to low-level sensory features. The amount of information coded within these multiplex representations in turn increases our trained classifier decodability for different video-types. We further discovered that the processing of category and feature information by these neurons is sustained by accumulation of temporal information over a long timescale, corroborating its role at the apex of the cortical hierarchy of temporal receptive windows. Taken altogether, these neural findings explain how dorsomedial PPC weaves fabrics of ongoing experiences together in real-time and realize a multiplex representation of an organism’s past. The high dimensionality of neural representations should motivate us to shift the focus of attention from pure selectivity neurons to mixed selectivity neurons, especially in increasingly complex naturalistic task designs.
New preprints
June 27, 2022
Our group member, Diogo Santos-Pata, just published his new preprints, Theta oscillations in the human hippocampus normalize the information content of episodic memory, on bioRxiv.
The preprints’ results are important as they suggest the brain dynamically adapts its intrinsic frequencies to the information it needs to process. It also further contributes to our understanding of how brain waves organize and associate the objects surrounding us.
In future work, the research team expects to be able to control brain waves of people with memory deficits such as dementia and Alzheimer’s patients in order to improve their cognitive capabilities.
Our Postdoc will attend PCN 2022
April 25, 2022
Our team postdoc research fellow Lei Wang has been admitted to attend the International Summer School for Primate Cognitive Neuroscience 2022 at the Gustav Stresemann Institut, Germany from July 24 to August 5, 2022. The Summer School is organized by the German Primate Center in Göttngen and is sponsored by the German Research Foundation.
DKU News about Our New Paper
June 11, 2022
Duke Kunshan University (DKU) published the news about our new paper as the title: Human brains run multiple systems in memory, DKU study suggests, on their homepage.
New preprints on metacognition
December 29, 2021
Our lab has two recent preprints on metacognition. Led by Yudian Cai, we applied TMS on the monkeys’ dlPFC and found a critical role of Brodmann Area 46d (BA 46d) in supporting metacognition without implicating task performance (see preprint Cai, Jin, Zhai et al.). In another study, we applied TMS on human angular gyrus and linked the AnG to gauging vividness efficiency, but not meta-confidence, of memory, thereby differentiating the monitoring of vividness from confidence (see preprint Zou & Kwok).
New preprints
December 29, 2021
Our team (led by Zhiyong Jin) contributed to a worldwide effort project studying the phylogenetic basis of short-term memory in the primate (see preprint). This represents our continual support of collaborative open science in primate cognition research, see this.
Consortium on ManyPrimates
Oxford Open Neuroscience
November 11, 2021
Oxford Open Neuroscience will publish rigorous and broad-interest papers and research into the nervous system in both health and disease, encompassing basic, translational, and clinical research. Interdisciplinary work and technological advancement are also welcomed. The journal publishes scientific research of the highest quality, rigour and significance, as well as reviews, commentaries and debates. In addition to original research, Oxford Open Neuroscience welcomes theoretical, technical and methodological papers within any field of neuroscience.
With its broad scope, the journal aims to represent the whole neuroscience community, with a focus on diversity in all aspects of leadership, decision-making, and authorship. As such, Oxford Open Neuroscience is run by a representative group of subject specialists, rather than a single Editor-in-Chief, meaning that decisions regarding policy, strategy, and development include the views and perspectives of a broad range of scientists in our community.
New Membership in the Memory Disorders Research Society (MDRS)
October 6, 2021
Dr Sze Chai Kwok just got elected as a new member into the Memory Disorders Research Society (MDRS). The MDRS a by-invitation-only professional society dedicated to the study of memory and members are engaged in basic and clinical research into how memory works and why it breaks.
Congrats!
Editorial Advisory Board for Oxford Open Neuroscience
October 6, 2021
Congrats!
Our Group Members’ Talks at The 2nd Annual Meeting of CNLM
August 1, 2021
Dr Sze Chai Kwok and six of our group members attended The 2nd annual meeting of the basic and clinical branch of learning and memory of Chinese society of Neuroscience, which was held by CNS from July 30th, 2021 to August 1st, 2021 in Qingdao, China.
Dr Lei Wang, Xufeng Zhou, Chenxi Zhai, Xuanlong Zhu, Jiaona Tong and Mingfeng Cao made their poster talks on the first day and got many inspiring feedbacks.
Photos in below and check for the poster by clicking their name. Prosit!
Jiangsu Qinglan Talent Program Award
June 24, 2021
Dr Sze Chai Kwok has been selected for a Jiangsu Qinglan Talent Program Award from 2021 to 2024, by Jiangsu Education Department.
Congrats!
Academic Seminar Guest in Zhejiang University
June 18, 2021
Dr Sze Chai Kwok was invited by Dr Anna Wang Roe and Dr Xiongjie Yu to give a talk on our recent work entitled “Elucidating Functional and Anatomical Profile of the Medio-Posterior Parietal Cortex during Naturalistic Paradigms in Nonhuman Primate”.
After the seminar, Dr Anna Wang Roe (front row, left), Dr Xiongjie Yu (front row, right), Dr Gang Chen (back row, right), Dr Xiaodong Chen (back row, left) and Sze Chai exchanged ideas about their recent works and future plans.
Hope we can have more collaborations!
Yudian Cai’s Talk at ASSC 24
June 15, 2021
Yudian Cai’s submission was selected as a short talk in the meeting of The 24th meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC). He presented his latest work with the title “Functional and cortical morphometric basis of metacognitive introspection in Old World monkeys (Macaca mulatta)”.
Congrats!
Yunxuan Zheng’s Talk at ASSC 24
June 15, 2021
Yunxuan Zheng’s submission was selected as a short talk in the meeting of The 24th meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC). He presented his latest work as the title “Posterior parietal cortex neurons distinguish memorized past from what is perceived as reality”.
For the video recording, see below.
Congrats!
Academic Seminar Guest in BNU
March 31, 2021
Sze Chai Kwok was invited by Dr Gui Xue, who worked as a professor in the Center for Brain and Learning Sciences at Beijing Normal University (BNU), to give a talk on our recent works.
Decoded Neurofeedback Toward Bias and Racism Mitigation (2021-2022)
January 23, 2021
Dr Sze Chai Kwok was selected for a Bass Connections project by Duke University with co-PI James Moody.
This project’s goals are to understand the neural basis of ingroup bias through advanced functional neuroimaging; validate the effectiveness of decoded neurofeedback on the downregulation of neural representation underlying ingroup bias; developing a proof-of-concept protocol for clinical applications; extend fMRI decoded neurofeedback methods to “modulate” racial biases, and raise public awareness that biases could be modulated.
For more details, please visit this page.
New Abstract Accepted as Poster Presentation in 2021 Cosyne
January 23, 2021
We have got an abstract accepted as a poster presentation in 2021 Cosyne:
Zuo S, Wang L, Jin Z, Kusunoki M, Zhou Y-d, Kwok SC (2021) Primate PPC neurons track the passage of time and orchestrate for successful temporal order memory. Cosyne 2021 #214.
Congrats!
National Merit Scholarship
November 6, 2020
We congratulate Lei Wang for being awarded a prestigious National Merit Scholarship for PhD studies (ranked 2nd). Here is the news on the college website.
Nengda Scholarship
November 6, 2020
We congratulate Yudian Cai for being awarded a prestigious Nengda Scholarship for PhD studies (ranked 4th). Here is the news on the college website.
NSFC General Program Grant
September 18, 2020
The lab has been awarded a 4-year National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) General Program grant to study “Domain-specificity of metacognition and its neural substrates”.
DKU News about Our New Paper
September 3, 2020
Duke Kunshan University (DKU) published the news about our new paper as the title: Out of sight, but not out of mind, on their homepage.
New Article out in Behavioural Brain Research
September 3, 2020
Our group member, Lei Wang, just published his new article, Fallacious reversal of event-order during recall reveals memory reconstruction in rhesus monkeys, in Behavioural Brain Research.
Editorial Board
June 28, 2020
Sze Chai has accepted an invitation to join the Editorial Board of the journal Cognitive Processing (Springer).
Young IBRO Regions Connecting Award
June 28, 2020
Sze Chai has been selected for a Young IBRO Regions Connecting Award, with co-applicant Eduardo A. Garza-Villarreal of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Academic Seminar Guest in Zhejiang University
June 5, 2020
Sze Chai Kwok was invited by Dr Shaomin Zhang, who worked as a professor in the Institute of Brain-machine Interface of Zhejiang University, to give a talk on our recent works.
More details are in the poster below.
Lei Wang’s Talk in Neuromatch 2.0
June 5, 2020
Lei Wang’s submission was selected as a short talk in Neuromatch 2.0. He presented his latest work on how precuneus neurons code for content and temporal information in macaques.
(Link: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/neuromatch2/37, starting at 13’00”)
NYU Shanghai News about Our New Paper
May 21, 2020
New York University Shanghai (NYU Shanghai) published the news about our new paper as the title: New study finds evidence for memory replay phenomenon in macaque monkeys, on their homepage.
Campus News about Our New Paper
May 8, 2020
Our university, East China Normal University(ECNU), released the news about our new paper: Behavioral evidence for memory replay of video episodes in the macaque on the WeChat official account. For the whole news, see here.
Review Editor
April 15, 2020
Sze Chai Kwok accepted the invitation to serve as Review Editor for Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
New Open Research Fund
March 22, 2020
We are granted a new Open Research Fund by the State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning (Beijing Normal University) to study metacognition with Xiaohong Wan as host investigator at BNU.
New Preprint out on BioRxiv
February 18, 2020
Our group member, Yunxuan Zheng, just published his new preprint article, Diffusion property and functional connectivity of superior longitudinal fasciculus underpin human metacognition, on BioRxiv.
Lab visit to Beijing Normal University and Peking University
December 7, 2019
Our group made a whirlwind trip to BNU and PKU on 5th-6th December 2019, and over a 2-day window, participated in three joint group meetings with Professor Liang Luo’s lab (BNU), Professor Xiaohong Wan’s lab (BNU), and Professor Yuji Naya’s lab (PKU). Over 8 presentations and discussions, we have covered an array of topics ranging from cognitive and neural components of metacognition, associative nature of MTL neurons, to the importance and hands-on wisdom in running a sustainable NHP lab. We also had the privilege in paying visits to the nonhuman primate facilities on both campuses.
Two presentations at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society
July 24, 2019
Lei Wang and Shuzhen Zuo will each give an oral presentation in NEURO2019 to be held from July 25th to 28th in Niigata, Japan.
Their abstracts can be found here and here.
NYU-ECNU Neuro Institute Retreat in Qiandao Lake
July 14, 2019
We are giving four poster presentations at the NYU-ECNU Neuro Institute Retreat in Qiandao Lake, China on 15-16 July 2019. Lei Wang will speak on his ephys data on putative memory traces in the posteromedial parietal cortices; Yudain Cai will speak on his probability distribution modelling work on task preparation time in macaques; Futing Zou will present her latest data on the role of angular gyrus in giving rise to a sense of vividness during memory retrieval, and Xinming Xu will present his work on how the precuneus is implicated during chronological order judgement. Their respective posters can be found here: [Wang et al., Cai et al., Zou et al., and Xu et al.].
Sze Chai will chair one of the sessions and will give a talk on the neurophysiology of hippocampus-independent memories and temporal-order judgement in the macaque posterior parietal cortex on 15th July 2019.
Our presence at CNS 2019
Two of our lab members are going to present at this year’s Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
Qun Ye is going to present Task-independent abstraction of episodic context in parietal cortices.
Xinming Xu will talk about Reconstructing real-life event sequences with schema-based knowledge.