I completed my PhD in Computational Neuroscience in September 2023, and I am currently a postdoc at the Bernstein Center Freiburg, Germany, working with Christian Leibold. I develop deep reinforcement learning agents with brain-inspired architectures in simulated realistic environments to test neuroscience theories and to make deep RL more efficient. I am interested in research positions in the field of deep reinforcement learning and/or theoretical (systems) neuroscience, starting in the latter half of 2025.

some keywords to describe my interests:

prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, working memory, sparsity, dynamical system, system identification, eliminative materialism

reservoir computing, world model, hyperbolic geometry

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My primary research interest is centered on uncovering the fundamental principles of intelligence in biological organisms. I approach this by formally describing and abstracting the physiological observations then analogizing them with engineered intelligent systems. In other words, I am inspired deeply by physics, control science and machine learning.

Currently I am very interested in taking neuroscience insights into engineering practice.

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 published in Science Advances, aims to bridge the gap between single-neuron and population-level perspectives in neuroscience.

Computational and systems neuroscience

• Lin, X.-X., Nieder, A., Jacob, S.N.(2023). The neuronal 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.