Yirong Xiong

credit:
Lunevani and Kalle

I’m a PhD student in XDBio program at Johns Hopkins University.

Before I started my PhD, I did an intership at Prof. Gilles Laurent’s lab in Frankfurt where I studied the anatomy and function of optic lobe in cuttlefish.

Before that, I did my Master’s study in University of Tübingen, where I majored in Neural Information Processing at Graduate Training Center of Neuroscience. During my master, I worked in Human and Machine Cognition Lab and studied how attention modulates learning and memory. Meanwhile I studied dynamical systems in spatial decision making with Dr. Vivek Sridhar in Konstanz. I did my master’s thesis in Burgalossi lab, and my lab rotation in Dr. Anna Levina’s lab. Before my study in Tübingen, I studied at Beijing Normal University and worked on corpus callosum topography using diffusion MRI (CCmapping).

My current research interests are learning and memory, especially in the context of spatial navigation. When I am not in lab, I love hiking and running in the wild, cooking and crocheting in my home.

Fun fact about me: in the pilot scan of my own experiment, I found my left cerebellum is almost missing. Ever since that, this has been the best excuse of my poor dancing skill. I’ve made a Valentine’s day poster of my brain scan.

selected publications

WM Topography
Cortical mapping of callosal connections in healthy young adults

Yirong Xiong, Liyuan Yang, Changtong Wang, Chenxi Zhao, Junhao Luo, Di Wu, Yiping Ouyang, Michel Thiebaut Schotten, and Gaolang Gong

Human Brain Mapping, 2024

Publisher: Wiley

Abs Bib PDF

The corpus callosum (CC) is the principal white matter (WM) bundle supporting communication between the two brain hemispheres. Despite its importance, a comprehensive mapping of callosal connections is still lacking. Here, we constructed the first bidirectional population-based callosal connectional atlas between the midsagittal section of the CC and the cerebral cortex of the human brain by means of diffusion-weighted imaging tractography. The estimated connectional topographic maps within this atlas have the most fine-grained spatial resolution, demonstrate histological validity, and were reproducible in two independent samples. This new resource will revolutionize the investigation of interhemispheric communication and come with a user-friendly companion online tool (CCmapping) for easy access and visualization of the atlas.
@article{xiongPopulationbasedCorticalMapping2024, journal = {Human Brain Mapping}, title = {Cortical mapping of callosal connections in healthy young adults}, author = {Xiong, Yirong and Yang, Liyuan and Wang, Changtong and Zhao, Chenxi and Luo, Junhao and Wu, Di and Ouyang, Yiping and de Schotten, Michel Thiebaut and Gong, Gaolang}, year = {2024}, note = {Publisher: Wiley}, }

Lateralization

Callosal fiber length scales with brain size according to functional lateralization, evolution, and development

Liyuan Yang, Chenxi Zhao, Yirong Xiong, Suyu Zhong, Di Wu, Shaoling Peng, Michel Thiebaut Schotten, and Gaolang Gong

Journal of Neuroscience, 2022

Publisher: Soc Neuroscience

Bib

@article{yangCallosalFiberLength2022a,
  title = {Callosal fiber length scales with brain size according to functional lateralization, evolution, and development},
  volume = {42},
  number = {17},
  journal = {Journal of Neuroscience},
  author = {Yang, Liyuan and Zhao, Chenxi and Xiong, Yirong and Zhong, Suyu and Wu, Di and Peng, Shaoling and de Schotten, Michel Thiebaut and Gong, Gaolang},
  year = {2022},
  note = {Publisher: Soc Neuroscience},
  pages = {3599--3610},
}

Memory

Selective Memory for Reward-Relevant Features Is Modulated by Expertise during Reward Learning

Yirong Xiong, Nir Moneta, Mihaly Banyai, and Charley Wu

2023

PDF
Decision Making

Understanding the Influence of Uncertainty and Noise on Spatial Decision Dynamics

Yirong Xiong, and Vivek H. Sridhar

2024

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