Research

Research areas

1. Brain alterations in autism spectrum disorder

I am interested in understanding the brain mechanisms underlying autism spectrum disorder. Related publications:

• Disrupted focal white matter integrity in autism spectrum disorder: a voxel-based meta-analysis of diffusion tensor imaging studies
• Similarly expanded bilateral temporal lobe volumes in female and male children with autism spectrum disorder

2. Brain functional connectivity during movie watching

I develop novel methods to study brain dynamic connectivity during natrualistic experiments, e.g., movie watching. Related publications:

• Individual differences in time-varying and stationary brain connectivity during movie watching from childhood to early adulthood: age, sex, and behavioral associations
• Dynamic and stationary brain connectivity during movie watching as revealed by functional MRI
• Principal component analysis reveals multiple consistent responses to naturalistic stimuli in children and adults

3. Brain functional connectivity in different task conditions

I am interested in how brain connectivity and network organization change under different conditions, such as resting-state, task performance, and watching movies. I develop methods for studying task-related connectivity, including psychophysiological interaction (PPI), beta series, sliding window, and intersubject correlation methods on both conventional task data and naturalistic task data. Related publications:

• Toward Task Connectomics: Examining Whole-Brain Task Modulated Connectivity in Different Task Domains
• Imperfect (de)convolution may introduce spurious psychophysiological interactions and how to avoid it
• Task vs. Rest - Different Network Configurations between the Coactivation and the Resting-State Brain Networks

4. Brain functional connectivity modulated by other regions

This line of researches focuses on how brain connectivity between two brain regions is modulated by a third region. Related publications:

• Anterior cingulate cortex differently modulates fronto-parietal functional connectivity between resting-state and working memory tasks
• Characterizations of resting-state modulatory interactions in human brain
• Modulatory Interactions between the Default Mode Network and Task Positive Networks in Resting-State

5. Brain metabolic connectivity and molecular connectivity

This line of research focuses on brain metabolic connectivity as measured by FDG-PET. Related publications:

• Interregional causal influences of brain metabolic activity reveal the spread of aging effects during normal aging
• Do all roads lead to Rome? A comparison of brain networks derived from inter-subject volumetric and metabolic covariance and moment-to-moment hemodynamic correlations in old individuals
• Metabolic Brain Covariant Networks as Revealed by FDG-PET with reference to resting-state fMRI networks

Collaborators

• Dr. Bharat Biswal @ NJIT
• Dr. Zhiguo Zhang @ HIT
• Dr. Ting Xu @ CMI

Research support

Current

• NJDOH CAUT25BRP005, 2024 - 2026, PI. Exploring eye-movement patterns and brain activity in autism spectrum disorder through deep learning-based eye-tracking with functional MRI

• NIH R15MH125332, 2021 - 2024, PI. Functional brain developments during movie watching and resting-state in autism spectrum disorder

Past

• NJDOH CAUT16APL019, 2016 - 2018, PI. Multimodal neuroimaging study of sex differences in children with autism spectrum disorder.