Xiaochuan Pan

Research Interests

1. Neural mechanism of inference. Inference is a fundamental cognitive function. The ability to make inference allows animals to deduce or induce new information from acquired knowledge to make flexible and adaptive response in new environments, without having to learn through direct experiences. Behavioral studies have demonstrated that animals are capable of various types of inferences, such as transitive inference, causal reasoning, and category inference. But neural mechanisms underlying inferences are not known. In a reward inference task, we found a group of neurons in primate lateral prefrontal cortex are involved in category-based reward inference, which could reflect the neural basis of category inference. Based on our current experiments and results, we need further to clarify how other brain areas are involved in category-based reward inference, the relationship among various types of inference and whether having common neural circuits for different types of inference.
2. Interactive function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the striatum. Anatomically, prefrontal neurons have strong projections to the striatum, as the input of the basal ganglia, the output of the basal ganglia feedbacks to the prefrontal cortex through the thalamus, forming a closed loop. Despite their close connections, it is thought that the PFC and the striatum play different roles in behavioral control: for example, the PFC selects actions required by external cognitive demands and the striatum guides behaviors driven by internal motivation. But it is not clear that how the two structures are interactive to determine a motor output. We try to simultaneously record neural activity from the PFC and the striatum while the monkey performs the reward inference task, and analyze the interaction between the PFC and the striatum, and the correlation of the interaction with the behavioral choices.

Articles

• Estimating causal interaction between prefrontal cortex and striatum by transfer entropy, Chaofei Ma, Xiaochuan Pan*, Rubin Wang, Masamichi Sakagami, Cognitive Neurodynamics, 2013, 7, 253 - 261
• A model of the hippocampal-cortical memory system, Pan X., and Tsukada M, Biological Cybernetics, 2012, 95(8), 159 - 167
• Category representation and generalization in the prefrontal cortex, Xiaochuan Pan, Masamichi Sakagami, European Journal of Neuroscience, 2012, 35, 1083 - 1091
• Reward prediction based on stimulus categorization in primate lateral prefrontal cortex, Pan X., Sawa K., Tsuda I., Tsukada M., and Sakagami M, Nature Neuroscience, 2008, 11, 703 - 712
• Functional role of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex in decision making, Sakagami M., and Pan X, Current Opinion Neurobiology, 2007, 17, 228 - 233
• Behavioral inhibition and prefrontal cortex in decision-making, Sakagami M., Pan X., and Uttl B, Neural Networks, 2006, 19, 1255 - 1265
• The spatiotemporal learning rule and its efficiency in separating spatiotemporal pattern, Tsukada M. and Pan X, Biological Cybernetics, 2005, 92(2), 139 - 146

Books

• Category inference and prefrontal cortex. Advances in Cognitive Neurodynamics (II)1, Xiaochuan Pan, Masamichi Sakagami, Springer, New York. 117-122, 2012
• Multiple Neural Circuits in Value-based Decision making. In “Decision Making, Affect and Learning” Attention and Performance vol. XXIII (Delgado, M et al., eds.), Manami Yamamoto, Xiaochuan Pan, Koseku Nomoto, Masamichi Sakagami, Oxford Press, 355-369, 2011
• Multiple neural circuits in value-based decision making. In Attention and Performance XXII, Yamamoto M., Pan X., Nomoto, K. and Sakagami M, in press, 2010

International Conferences

• Hongwei Fan, Xiaochuan Pan, Masamichi Sakagami, Striatal neurons infer stimulus outcomes, SFN (Society for Neuroscience), New Orleans, LA, U.S.A., 2012/10/13-2012/10/17
• Xiaochuan Pan, Masamichi Sakagami, Guest lecture, Reward inference by primate prefrontal cortex and striatum neurons, The first Conference of Neurodynamics, Shanghai, 2012/03/28-2012/03/31
• Xiaochuan Pan, Hongwei Fan, Masamichi Sakagami, Reward inference by prefrontal and striatal neurons, SFN, Washington, DC, 2011/11/12-2011/11/16
• Hongwei Fan, Xiaochuan Pan, Masamichi Sakagami, Local inactivation of primate prefrontal cortex impairs reward prediction based on category inference, The 34th Annual meeting of Japanese Neuroscience Society, Yokoyama, 2011/09/14-2011/09/17
• Xiaochuan Pan, Masamichi Sakagami, Guest lecture, Interactive function between prefrontal cortex and striatum revealed by local field potential, 2011 the conference of Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Machanics, Haerbin, 2011/08/22-2011/08/24
• Xiaochuan Pan, Masamichi Sakagami, Causal interaction between lateral prefrontal cortex and striatum, The 33rd Annual Meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society, Kobe, 2010/09/02-2010/09/04
• Xiaochuan Pan, Masamichi Sakagami, Category-based reward inference in prefrontal cortex., The Joint Tamagawa-Caltch Workshop on Decision Making, Tokyo, 2010/03/03-2010/03/05
• Pan X, Sakagami M, Category inference and prefrontal cortex, The 2nd international conference on cognitive neurodynamics, Hangzhou, China, 2009/11/15-2009/11/19
• Pan X, Sakagami M, Model-based and model-free learning by striatal neurons, The 32nd Annual meeting of Japanese Neuroscience Society, Nagoya, Japan , 2009/09/16-2009/09/18
• Pan X, Sakagami M, Category inference by the monkey, In Workshop of Cognitive Neurodynamics and Cognitive Dysfunction, Shanghai China, 2009/08/20-2009/08/21
• Pan X, Sakagami, M, Reward prediction by prefrontal and striatal neurons, The 11th Tamagawa Dynamic Brain Forum, Atami, Japan, 2009/03/02-2009/03/04
• Pan X, Sakagami M, Functional roles of prefrontal cortex and striatum in reward process, Workshop of "統合脳", Hokkaido, Japan, 2008/08/07-2008/08/10
• Pan X, Sakagami M, Dissociable roles of lateral prefrontal cortex and striatum for reward prediction, The 31st Annual meeting of Japanese Neuroscience Society, Tokyo, Japan, 2008/06/09-2008/06/11
• Pan X, Sawa K, Sakagami M, Model-based reward prediction by prefrontal neuron, The Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, California, 2007/11/03-2007/11/07
• Pan X, Sawa K, Sakagami M, Model-based reward prediction in the primate prefrontal cortex, The 30th Annual meeting of Japanese Neuroscience Society, Yokohama, Japan, 2007/09/10-2007/09/12
• Pan X, Sawa K, Sakagami M, Inferring reward in unexperienced setting by prefrontal neurons, The Society for Neuroscience, Atlanta,U.S.A., 2006/10/14-2006/10/18
• Pan X, Sawa K, Sakagami M, Reward predicting activity of prefrontal neurons based on group of stimuli, The 29th Annual meeting of Japan Neuroscience Society, Kyoto, Japan, 2006/07/19-2006/07/21
• Sakagami M, Pan X, Sawa K, Reward prediction based on integration of new associative information, The 29th Annual meeting of Japan Neuroscience Society, Kyoto, Japan, 2006/07/19-2006/07/21

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