Fudan-Cambridge Cognition & Brain Science Symposium 2022

Agenda

Speakers

Ø Duncan Astle

Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Cambridge; Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Medical Research Council, University of Cambridge

Duncan is the Gnodde Goldman Sachs Professor of Neuroinformatics at the Department of Psychiatry, a Programme Leader at the Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, and a Fellow of Robinson College. He heads the ‘4D Lab’ (https://www.astlelab.com/). They use a series of analytical tools – sometimes called neuroinformatics – to address crucial clinical and fundamental questions about childhood development and its disorders. Their work has been supported by the Royal Society, the British Academy, the Medical Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council and various charitable foundations. In recent years Duncan won the Early Career Prize by the British Association of Cognition Neuroscience (2017), the Salvesen Prize (2020), the Vice-Chancellor’s Engagement and Impact Award (2020), and a National Celebrating Neurodiversity Award (2022).

Title: Development, diversity and data science: a transdiagnostic approach to understanding neurodevelopment

Abstract: Macroscopic brain organisation emerges early in life, even prenatally, and continues to change through adolescence and into early adulthood. The emergence and continual refinement of large-scale brain networks, connecting neuronal populations across anatomical distance, allows for increasing functional integration and specialisation. But this gradual process of network emergence is incredibly variable across individuals, and it is not clear why the diversity exists, what consequences it holds for cognition, or what factors might shape it over time. This talk will showcase the application of different AI-inspired computational models to address three crucial challenges that developmental scientists face. Firstly, how do we capture the incredible heterogeneity that exists across childhood and adolescents, and do these differences map to established diagnostic categories? Secondly, can we build developmental models that formalise simple biological principles in order to capture complex developmental phenomena? Thirdly, can we use these models to bridge scales and species to establish fundamental and causal mechanisms that shape development? The take home message? Whilst certain modelling techniques might appear new, in reality they offer us a formal way of addressing some of the most long-standing questions at the heart of developmental science.

Ø Qiang Luo

Centre for Computational Psychiatry, Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-inspired Intelligence, Fudan University

Qiang Luo, PhD, is a Principal Investigator at ISTBI. He got his PhD on Systems Science in 2010. After his post-doc research in the Shanghai Center for Mathematical Sciences, he has joined Fudan University as a Young Associate Principal Investigator since 2015. He was a Senior Visiting Lecturer at King’s College London for 3 years and had been elected as a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge in 2018. His research takes a multidisciplinary approach to investigate adolescent brain development, advance the understanding of neuropsychiatric disorders, and design personalized treatments using artificial intelligence. He is the principal investigator of 4 grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China. He has published papers in top journals in this field, including JAMA Psychiatry, NeuroImage and Neuropsychopharmacology. His research has won the Diversity in Research Award issued by the Human Brain Project of the Europe, and has also been covered by a Spotlight Article in Nature. He has joined the Editorial Board of Psychological Medicine since 2021, and served as an Associated Editor for the Frontiers in Neuroimaging.

Title: Computational behavioural modelling of the stop-signal task and its association with substance use in adolescents

Abstract: The Stop Signal Task (SST) has been used as a definitive assessment for inhibitory control in neuroimaging and neurophysiological research, and has been widely used to detect the deficit of response inhibition in substance users, ADHD patients, etc. In this test, the stop signal reaction time (SSRT), which is used as a measure of response inhibition, can be inferred on the basis of the distribution of reaction times on trials without a stop-signal, and the probability of inhibition. However, the action cancellation in this test seems to have different contributors, especially including processing speed (or attention) and response inhibition. By the computational modelling using two coupled stochastic diffusion processes, we are going to show that SSRT is actually a combination of multiple mechanistic parameters in the model. The preliminary results of the behavioural and neuroimaging characterizations of these model parameters indicate that the response inhibition can be better isolated and assessed by the diffusion rate of the brake process in our model. Furthermore, adolescent smoking seems to be more related to attention while adolescent cannabis use is more related to inhibition.

Ø Emmanuel Stamatakis

Division of Anaesthesia, School of Medicine, University of Cambridge

Dr Stamatakis leads the Cognition and Consciousness Imaging Group (https://sites.google.com/site/ccigcambridge) in the Division of Anaesthesia, University of Cambridge. His research seeks to determine how cognitive function/dysfunction arises from the topographical organisation and complex dynamics in the brain. His current work focuses on understanding the neural mechanisms underlying a broad spectrum of altered states of awareness/consciousness in healthy volunteers (induced by anaesthetic or psychedelic drugs), and patients who have sustained brain injuries that result in disorders of consciousness (e.g. minimally conscious state). This work is underpinned by fundamental neuroscience questions on the role of the default mode network in complex cognition, as well as broader cognitive architecture questions.  Dr Stamatakis’ recent work was funded by two large collaborative European Research projects (CENTER-TBI and BIOCOG - Framework Programme 7) as well as the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. The work has been published in high-impact journals such as Nature Neuroscience, Nature Communications, Brain, Lancet Neurology, PNAS, The Neuroscientist, Cerebral Cortex, Communications Biology, Human Brain Mapping, Neuroimage and Journal of Neuroscience.

Title: The neural mechanisms underlying conscious processing

Abstract: A central question in neuroscience is how cognition and consciousness arise from human brain activity. Investigating changes in brain function induced by drugs (such as anaesthetics or psychedelics) or disorders of consciousness (e.g. coma, minimally conscious state), is a powerful method for understanding how mind interfaces with brain, by connecting psychological phenomena with their neurobiological correlates. Using network neuroscience, information theory and mathematical modelling we try to understand the neural underpinnings of altered states of consciousness. Our findings reveal a more nuanced, temporally-specific picture of altered brain connectivity than has previously been reported.

Ø Wei-Guang Li

Institute for Translational Brain Research, State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and Ministry of Education Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Fudan University

Dr. Wei-Guang Li is currently a Principal Investigator and professor at the Institute for Translational Brain Research and an adjunct professor at Huashan Hospital, Fudan University. He received his bachelor degree in Basic Medicine at Sichuan University in 2006. He received his Ph.D. degree in Neurobiology at Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2011. He then went to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine for postdoctoral training and was appointed as a faculty member there in 2014 (from assistant investigator, associate investigator to investigator). In 2021, he joined Fudan University and established a laboratory entitled “Memory Principles and Applications”. The primary goal of his laboratory is aiming at elucidating the biological basis of memory engram in the context of dynamic processes including memory extinction and relapse, forgetting and remembering, and to explore the role of memory conditioning in the regulation of metabolic, immune and other pathophysiological processes through cross-disciplinary approaches. His previous work has been published as first or corresponding (including co-corresponding) author in Neuron, Molecular Psychiatry, National Science Review, Signal Transduction and Targeted therapy, Nature Communications, Science Advances, Cell Reports, and other academic journals.

Title: Memory trace for fear extinction: fragile yet reinforceable

Abstract: Fear extinction is a phenomenon in which learned fear behavior is weakened or eliminated, thereby allowing the organism to adapt to ever changing situations. This process forms the basis of induced behavior changes by psychotherapies for many conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Based on the hypothesis that extinction is a new learning and forms an extinction memory, this new memory is more readily forgettable than the original fear memory, i.e., it easily becomes inaccessible and loses the memory control over behavior. The cellular and synaptic traces in the brain that support this inherently fragile yet reinforceable extinction memory remain unclear. Although it is widely accepted that synaptic plasticity encodes memories, most of previous studies have been conducted at the population level and have not addressed the question of which neurons in specific brain regions undergo plasticity, and site-specific substrates within engram neurons have been largely unexplored. Intriguing questions remain regarding where engram neurons of fear extinction memory are assigned and how they constitute a functional construct and work in concert to store and express extinction memory. Here I will present our recent advances in interregional engram circuits and their neural connectivity plasticity, which underlie the dynamic competition between fear and extinction memories in adaptive control of conditioned fear responses.

Ø Ying Zhao

Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Cambridge

Dr Ying Zhao is a postdoctoral researcher with Professor Valerie Voon investigating the neural mechanism of substance misuse and addiction, particularly alcohol drinking and smoking, using UK Biobank. In addition, Ying is interested in looking for biomarkers for brain stimulation-based treatment in multidimensional psychiatric disorders using multimodal brain imaging methods. Ying received her PhD from the University of Manchester in Dec-2018 supervised by Professor Matt Lambon Ralph (main) and Dr Ajay Halai with a background studying brain-behaviour relationships in language and other cognitive domains with stroke patients and healthy participants using MRI. Ying has first-author publications in Brain, Biological Psychiatry, Journal of Neuroscience, etc.

Title: Mesial prefrontal cortex and alcohol misuse: dissociating cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships in UK Biobank

Abstract: Alcohol misuse is a major global public health issue and is characterized by aberrant neural networks. The present talk introduces our findings in dissecting the neural substrates and functional networks that relate to longitudinal changes in alcohol use from those that relate to alcohol misuse cross-sectionally. We analysed the UK Biobank, a population-based normative sample with range of alcohol misuse, with ~24,000 participants in cross-sectional analysis and ~3,000 in longitudinal analysis 2 years later. In cross-sectional analysis, alcohol use is associated with a reduction in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and dorsomedial prefrontal (dmPFC) grey matter concentration and functional resting-state connectivity. Reduced dACC/dmPFC functional connections to the ventrolateral prefrontal, amygdala, striatum relate to greater alcohol use. In longitudinal analysis, higher resting-state nodal degree and T1 grey matter concentration in the ventromedial prefrontal (vmPFC) cortex relate to reduced alcohol intake frequency 2 years later. Higher vmPFC and frontal-parietal executive network functional connectivity are associated with lower subsequent drinking longitudinally. In conclusion, we found dorsal versus ventromedial prefrontal regions are differentially related to alcohol misuse cross-sectionally or longitudinally. Our study provides a comprehensive understanding of the neurobiological substrates of alcohol use as a state or prospectively, thereby providing potential targets for clinical treatment.

Ø Joern Alexander Quent

Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-inspired Intelligence, Fudan University

Dr. Joern Alexander Quent works together with Associate Professor Deniz Vatansever examining signatures of mental navigation in the human brain. Originally from Germany, he studied at the Ruhr-University Bochum (RUB; Germany). As a Gates Cambridge scholar he received his PhD by working with Prof Rik Henson at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at the University of Cambridge. His interests span from understanding how novelty and surprise shape our memories to neuroimaging of navigation. For his research, he received funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and China Postdoctoral Committee.

Title: Neural signatures of spatial navigation and memory using ultra-high-resolution 7T fMRI

Abstract: A key challenge of cognitive neuroscience is to understand how humans encode representations of our complex environments for flexible and adaptive navigation. Here, an influential theory posits that humans form so-called “cognitive maps” to systematically organise their knowledge and experience of their environments, serving flexible cognition. This old idea is currently revolutionising our understanding of human cognition, especially with regard to long-term memory, and the underlying neural mechanisms. To investigate the relationship between cognitive maps, spatial navigation and memory, I designed a virtual reality object location memory task where participants have to learn the location of a number of objects, while recording brain activity at ultra-high-resolution 7T fMRI. Behaviourally, we found that the participants underestimate the distance between the object and border location. Additionally, preliminary data allowed us to disentangle and describe the relationships between various memory performance measures. Neurally, we found increased memory-related activity in the pre-subiculum and parahippocampal areas and decreased of activity in the hippocampus during object retrieval. Furthermore, there is evidence for grid-like modulation with regard to the running direction in the left entorhinal cortex. Collectively, these results highlight the effectiveness of virtual reality environments in interrogating spatial navigation and memory.