I completed my PhD in Computational Neuroscience in September 2023, and am currently actively looking for postdoctoral positions in computational neuroscience as well as industry opportunities in related fields such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Brain-Computer Interfaces.

My primary research interest is centered on uncovering the fundamental principles of intelligence present in both biological and artificial neural networks. I believe the neural manifold presents a suitable level of abstraction for understanding complex systems across species and scales.

Throughout my PhD research, I engaged extensively in population level neural data analysis. I leveraged biological principles of sparse connectivity to dissect representational geometry of working memory, and identified disentangled representations within distinct neuronal ensembles. This work, now in the third round of review at Science Advances, aims to bridge the gap between single-neuron and population-level perspectives in neuroscience.

I have always been intrigued by physics-inspired approaches and see their potential to significantly advance neuroscience, especially by distilling local biological observations into network level descriptions of the brain, which are closely related to cognitive functions. This interest propels me towards integrating physics-inspired paradigms into my research endeavors. In my future research, I aim to shift towards more theoretical approaches and develop analysis pipelines that are solidly anchored in normative theories.

Computational and systems neuroscience

• Lin, X.-X., Nieder, A., Jacob, S.N.(2023). The neurocellular implementation of representational geometry in primate prefrontal cortex. Science Advances. [open access]
• Eisenkolb, V. M., Held, L. M., Utzschmid, A., Lin, X.-X., Krieg, S. M., Meyer, B., ... & Jacob, S. N. (2023). Human acute microelectrode array recordings with broad cortical access, single-unit resolution and parallel behavioral monitoring. Cell Reports.

Cognitive neuroscience

• Bao, Y., Pöppel, E., Wang, L., Lin, X., Yang, T., Avram, M., ... Vedder, A. (2015). Synchronization as a biological, psychological and social mechanism to create common time: a theoretical frame and a single case study. PsyCh Journal, 4(4), 243-254.
• Bao, Y., Yang, T., Lin, X., & Pöppel, E. (2016). Donders revisited: Discrete or continuous temporal processing underlying reaction time distributions? PsyCh Journal, 5(3), 177-179.
• Wang, L., Bao, Y., Zhang, J., Lin, X., Yang, L., Pöppel, E., & Zhou, B. (2016). Scanning the world in three seconds: Mismatch negativity as an indicator of temporal segmentation. PsyCh Journal, 5(3), 170-176.
• Wang, L., Lin, X., Zhou, B., Pöppel, E., & Bao, Y. (2015). Subjective present: a window of temporal integration indexed by mismatch negativity. Cognitive Processing, 16(1), 131-135.
• Wang, L., Lin, X., Zhou, B., Pöppel, E., & Bao, Y. (2016). Rubberband effect in temporal control of mismatch negativity. Frontiers in Psychology, 7.

Neural aesthetics

• Bao, Y., Yang, T., Zhang, J., Zhang, J., Lin, X., Paolini, M., ... & Silveira, S. (2017). The "third abstraction" of the Chinese artist LaoZhu: Neural and behavioral indicators of aesthetic appreciation. PsyCh Journal, 6(2), 110-119.
• Bao, Y., Yang, T., Lin, X., Fang, Y., Wang, Y., Pöppel, E., & Lei, Q. (2016). Aesthetic Preferences for Eastern and Western Traditional Visual Art: Identity Matters. Frontiers in Psychology, 7.