Research projects during my PhD.

How does the brain consolidate memories and make choices?

My PhD studies try to answer the question: how does the brain consolidate memories and make choices. To study the questions, I develop new rat behavior assays/paradigms and quantitatively analyze neurons activities in conjunction with animal behavior.

1. Hippocampus neuronal activities predict subsequent choice during change-of-mind.. In this study, we first notice that upon placing naive rats in a new environment, they often exhibit a natural tendency to make certain choices despite these choices do not yield reward - call this tendency habit. We then notice that when rats have a change-of-mind moment, they often break their habit, allowing them to better engage with the environment. What’s intriging is that as the rat is actively moving away from the aborted choice, the hippocampus activities predict subsequent choice. In the context of hippocampus research, activities of the hippocampus during movement have been linked to possible choice the animals are about to make Comrie et al., 2024. However, the definitive prediction from the neuronal actvities has not been shown. Compared to many previous studies with rats-in-a-maze setup, my project takes the advantage of the change-of-mind behavior, which is a moment with high attention and cognitive demand. This simple restriction to this specific behavior reduces much of the variance in noisy biological data. Last updated: Nov, 2025.

2. Nontrajectory memory replays.. Hippocampus memory replays are traditionally understood in the unit of spatial trajectories that animals experiences in a maze. But our lives are more than just getting from place A to place B. We often have a routine pattern of visiting places. Does memory replay partake in that or it is always about just getting from place A to place B? We observe many clues that the hippocampus does not replay the trajectories alone. More story to unfold in the last few months of my PhD and with the Mattar Lab.

Last updated: Nov, 2025.