Deng Pan
@dengpan.bsky.social
DPhil(PhD) student @ox.ac.uk, @oxexppsy.bsky.social studying #CognitiveNeuroscience | B.S. from @pku1898.bsky.social.
Website: https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/people/deng-pan
Twitter: https://x.com/DengPan18
Website: https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/people/deng-pan
Twitter: https://x.com/DengPan18
See also our thread on X (formerly Twitter): x.com/DengPan18/st...
Deng Pan 潘登 on X: "🚨We believe this is a major step forward in how we study hippocampus function in healthy humans. Using novel behavioral tasks, fMRI, RL & RNN modeling, and transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS), we demonstrate the causal role of hippocampus in relational structure learning. https://t.co/2x3Efdrr57" / X
🚨We believe this is a major step forward in how we study hippocampus function in healthy humans. Using novel behavioral tasks, fMRI, RL & RNN modeling, and transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS), we demonstrate the causal role of hippocampus in relational structure learning. https://t.co/2x3Efdrr57
x.com
August 28, 2025 at 10:24 PM
See also our thread on X (formerly Twitter): x.com/DengPan18/st...
Full preprint:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Causal necessity of human hippocampus for structure-based inference in learning
When meeting new individuals or encountering known individuals in new circumstances, we intuitively map out their relationships – not merely by direct experience, but by quickly inferring new connecti...
www.biorxiv.org
August 28, 2025 at 10:22 PM
Full preprint:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We also thank @mkwittmann.bsky.social, @marcelomattar.bsky.social, and people from Behrens Lab
@behrenstimb.bsky.social, for their helpful comments on this work!
Also had a lot of fun presenting this at #RLDM2025 and #CCN2025. We really appreciate all the generous feedback.
@behrenstimb.bsky.social, for their helpful comments on this work!
Also had a lot of fun presenting this at #RLDM2025 and #CCN2025. We really appreciate all the generous feedback.
August 28, 2025 at 10:21 PM
We also thank @mkwittmann.bsky.social, @marcelomattar.bsky.social, and people from Behrens Lab
@behrenstimb.bsky.social, for their helpful comments on this work!
Also had a lot of fun presenting this at #RLDM2025 and #CCN2025. We really appreciate all the generous feedback.
@behrenstimb.bsky.social, for their helpful comments on this work!
Also had a lot of fun presenting this at #RLDM2025 and #CCN2025. We really appreciate all the generous feedback.
Huge thanks to people in the Rushworth Lab and collaborators @oxexppsy.bsky.social who made this work possible:
@alimahmoodi.bsky.social @mkflugge.bsky.social @simonedambrogio.bsky.social @mirunarascu.bsky.social, Naomi Kingston, Pranav Sankhe, Shuyi Luo, and my incredible mentor Matthew Rushworth.
@alimahmoodi.bsky.social @mkflugge.bsky.social @simonedambrogio.bsky.social @mirunarascu.bsky.social, Naomi Kingston, Pranav Sankhe, Shuyi Luo, and my incredible mentor Matthew Rushworth.
August 28, 2025 at 10:18 PM
Huge thanks to people in the Rushworth Lab and collaborators @oxexppsy.bsky.social who made this work possible:
@alimahmoodi.bsky.social @mkflugge.bsky.social @simonedambrogio.bsky.social @mirunarascu.bsky.social, Naomi Kingston, Pranav Sankhe, Shuyi Luo, and my incredible mentor Matthew Rushworth.
@alimahmoodi.bsky.social @mkflugge.bsky.social @simonedambrogio.bsky.social @mirunarascu.bsky.social, Naomi Kingston, Pranav Sankhe, Shuyi Luo, and my incredible mentor Matthew Rushworth.
6. 🚀 This is enabled by transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS)—a safe, reversible, precise method to non-invasively probe deep brain function, which finally makes the hippocampus accessible in healthy humans.
Here is me being stimulated to test the TUS effect myself.
Here is me being stimulated to test the TUS effect myself.
August 28, 2025 at 8:34 PM
6. 🚀 This is enabled by transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS)—a safe, reversible, precise method to non-invasively probe deep brain function, which finally makes the hippocampus accessible in healthy humans.
Here is me being stimulated to test the TUS effect myself.
Here is me being stimulated to test the TUS effect myself.
5. 🌟Empirical evidence: Using TUS to temporarily modulate hippocampal activity in healthy humans, we primarily disrupted their ability to use relational knowledge for inference, confirming its causal necessity for relational structure learning.
August 28, 2025 at 8:33 PM
5. 🌟Empirical evidence: Using TUS to temporarily modulate hippocampal activity in healthy humans, we primarily disrupted their ability to use relational knowledge for inference, confirming its causal necessity for relational structure learning.
4. ⏩Computational predictions: An RNN trained on our task developed hippocampus-like units encoding relational structure. Lesioning these units selectively disrupted inference — predicting the hippocampus’s causal role.
August 28, 2025 at 2:11 PM
4. ⏩Computational predictions: An RNN trained on our task developed hippocampus-like units encoding relational structure. Lesioning these units selectively disrupted inference — predicting the hippocampus’s causal role.
3. 🧠 Neural basis: using fMRI, we show that such relational knowledge is consistently represented in the hippocampus across diverse contexts, in a manner distinct from other brain regions.
Next, we asked: Is this representation causally necessary for structure-based inference?
Next, we asked: Is this representation causally necessary for structure-based inference?
August 28, 2025 at 2:08 PM
3. 🧠 Neural basis: using fMRI, we show that such relational knowledge is consistently represented in the hippocampus across diverse contexts, in a manner distinct from other brain regions.
Next, we asked: Is this representation causally necessary for structure-based inference?
Next, we asked: Is this representation causally necessary for structure-based inference?
2. 🤖 Our RL models show that only models with relational knowledge capture human behaviour, outperforming experience-only models.
August 28, 2025 at 2:07 PM
2. 🤖 Our RL models show that only models with relational knowledge capture human behaviour, outperforming experience-only models.
1. 👥 When meeting new people, we don’t learn about them from scratch — in our “Goalkeeper Game”, participants showed structure-based inference by leveraging relational knowledge to rapidly learn new relationships in changing environments.
August 28, 2025 at 2:05 PM
1. 👥 When meeting new people, we don’t learn about them from scratch — in our “Goalkeeper Game”, participants showed structure-based inference by leveraging relational knowledge to rapidly learn new relationships in changing environments.