RIKEN CBS
Imagination & Executive Functions Lab
Kentaro Miyamoto Lab. at RIKEN CBS
MEMBERS
Kentaro Miyamoto
Team leader
Kentaro studied the neural mechanism of retrieval and encoding of recognition memory in primates in my PhD course at The University of Tokyo School of Medicine (awarded in 2014; advisor: Prof. Yasushi Miyashita). Then he was interested in the brain functions of self-monitoring of past memory (meta-memory) and prediction/self-evaluation of future actions (prospective metacognition). From 2017, he studied prospective decision making in primates at University of Oxford as a post-doc (Matthew Rushworth lab). JSPS Fellow from 2011 to 2019 (DC1, PD, Abroad). Current position from July 2021. Visiting associate professor at The University of Tokyo Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from April 2023 (Please contact me if you are interested in MSc/PhD course in our lab).
MingMing Lin
Researcher
EDUCATION: Ph.D., Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo
PREVIOUS WORK EXPERIENCE: JSPS Research Fellow
Research Fellow, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry
Research Associate, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, etc.
RESEARCH TOPPICS: Effects of acute stress on memory, Individual differences of personality, Mental health, Reliability of online research methods, etc.
Marina Saito
Alumni
Marina received her Ph.D. at the university of Tokyo. JSPS fellow (DC1) from 2019 to 2021 specializing in the effect of the blind spot stimulation on the perception of the normal visual field. She left this lab to Nagoya city University (Tsujimira lab) as JSPS fellow PD in April 2022.
Shiho Tanaka
Visiting Researcher
Shiho got a Ph.D. (Psychology) at Sophia University. She had been involved with neural psychology for ADHD and Depression as Clinical Psychologist/Certified Public Psychologist in 2019-2021. Engaged in clinical training at Mitsui Memorial Hospital. To clarify the collaboration mechanisms among individuals with diverse subjective from neural science perspective, she became the member of this lab as Research Part-timer1 since October 2021, as Junior Research Associate since 2022. Joined Takamitsu Watanabe Lab, IRCN, University of Tokyo as Project Researcher since 2024.
Mika Baba
Researcher
Graduated from the Department of Biotechnology, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. Received PhD, at Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University in 2015. After working on the neurons involved in binocular vision in the early visual cortex, I have been engaged in research on the brain mechanisms of ‘Shitsukan’, or perception of material property, at National Institute for Physiological Sciences and Brain Science Institute, Tamagawa University.
Tomoko Yamagata
Visiting Researcher
Tomoko received a PhD in Engineering from Tamagawa University, Japan for her research in the neural mechanism of visuomotor transformation in prefrontal cortex and premotor cortex in macaque monkeys with Dr Jun Tanji and Dr Eiji Hoshi (2010). In 2015, she started studying sleep neurobiology in Vladyslav Vyazovskiy lab, DPAG, University Oxford. As a postdoc in Sleep Circadian Institutes in NDCN, she studied the role of cortex in sleep homeostasis (Lukas and Yamagata et al, Nat Neurosci, 2021) and the integrative role of the preoptic hypothalamus in sleep/wake regulation and sleep homeostasis in mice (Yamagata et al, PNAS, 2021). She moved back to Japan in 2021 and started sleep/anesthesia study in mice and monkey.
Akane Nagano
Special Postdoctoral Researcher
Akane obtained a PhD in 2018 (Doctor of Psychogy, Doshisha University). She was a JSPS Research Fellow (DC2) (2017-2018). For her work in graduate school, she researched self-control and physical causal understanding in rats from the perspectives of physical psychology, behavioral analysis and comparative cognition. In 2018-2021 (assistant professor in Faculty of Psychology, Doshisha University), she researched the evolutionary and developmental processes of manipulation of mental representantion and spatial cognition in squirrel monkeys and degus (joint research with Kyoto University). She transferred to this lab as a JSPS Research Fellow (PD) in 2021. Currently, she aims to shed light on the neural mechanisms of higher cognition in macaque monkeys as a Special Postdoctoral Researcher.
Junko Kuwata
Assistant
Taku Hasegawa
Researcher
After completing a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience at University of California at Los Angeles, I entered into Graduate School of Biostudies, Kyoto University, where I obtained a PhD in life science through the development of molecular and electrophysiological tools: reversible blockade of neural transmission using tetanus neurotoxin, and a wireless device for single-unit recordings. As a postdoctoral fellow, I studied the neural mechanisms for motor control in the basal ganglia at National Institute of Physiological Sciences (Nambu lab; 2015-2021), where chemogenetics was applied to Macaque monkeys.
Tomomi Watanabe
Technical Staff 1
It's been a few years away from the monkey site for Tomomi and she thinks it needs some rehabilitation, but she hopes it helps everyone. “On the bridge between monkeys and people, and I will do my best to be another hand for everyone if someone ask for it! Thank you.”
Sara Matsui
Alumni
Sara has graduated from Smith College double majoring in Neuroscience and Computer Science. Her honors thesis focuses on the machine learning analysis of rodent ultrasonic vocalizations, studying the effects of the inhibition of prefrontal cortex in the context of social interaction. She has been working in the lab since 2023 Summer. Starting in the spring of 2024, she joined a consulting firm.
Han Zhang
Junior Research Associate
Han is a PhD student at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Her research focuses on elucidating the mechanisms of creative thinking associated with dreaming sleep.
Daisuke Kato
Visiting Resercher
Daisuke studied the neural mechanism of the binocular vision processing in the early visual cortex of cats, and received a Ph.D. in Science from Osaka University, Japan (2016; advisor Prof. Izumi Ohzawa). After completing his Ph.D., he left the field of research and planned to spend the rest of his life as a software engineer, but in May '22, he joined the RIKEN CBS Thinking and Execution Function Research Team. He is in charge of setting up the electrophysiology experiment system.
Ayano Koyanagi
MSc student
1st year, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo. In her undergraduate studies, she conducted theoretical research on Erving Goffman's "Stigma.'' In her master's program, she plan to research the social behavior of macaque monkeys. Thank you.
Zonghao Xin
JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship for Research in Japan
Xin received his PhD degree from the University of Tokyo, under the School of Engineering, Department of Bioengineering, with the instruction by Prof. Masaki Sekino. Xin has been working on evaluating nerual responses against brain brain stimulation methods such as TMS, as well as developing novel brain stimulation techniques. During this process, Xin was gradually getting interest in general neuronscience and cognition, therefore he decided to transfer his research field to cognitive neuroscience during his postdoctoral career.
Research Topics
Our team is studying the neural circuits to generate ‘self-awareness’ and ‘imagination of others.
Selected Publications
Miyamoto et al., revealed that the posterior cortex is essential for the conversion of concept-specific confidence read out in the prefrontal cortex into integrative introspection to output a strategically adaptive action.
Miyamoto et al. revealed that a brain area in the anterior lateral prefrontal cortex (alPFC, BA47) is crucial for estimating our future chances of success and planning actions based on the prediction.
Miyamoto et al. revealed that the frontopolar cortex (FPC) at the rostral end of the prefrontal cortex is essential for confidence judgement of memory about novel objects. FPC was suggested to be the neural origin of awareness of ignorance (“I know that I know nothing”).
Miyamoto et al. discovered the brain mechanism of ‘metamemory’ for self-evaluation of memory performance in macaque monkeys performing confidence judgement on memory retrieval by a whole-brain functional neuroimaging and targeted neuropharmacological inactivation.
Miyamoto et al. identified the whole-brain network for memory retrieval in macaque monkeys performing recognition memory task under MRI scanning. Functional homology of the posterior parietal cortex for memory processes between monkeys and humans was revealed.
Yamagata et al, has examined how activity in hypothalamus sleep/wake control circuits affect sleep homeostasis. The optogenetic modulation of the circuits changed within state arousal and altered daily sleep/wake architecture.
Hasegawa et al. suppressed the subthalamic nucleus (STN) of Macaque monkeys using chemogenetics and induced involuntary movements. Single-unit recordings suggested a novel neural mechanism; the STN modulates the spike train variability of the output nucleus of the basal ganglia to stabilize voluntary movements.
This study demonstrated reliability and validity in Japanese versions of the full 18-item and 9- and 6-item short forms of the Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire (PIUQ). This newly translated measure will be useful as a convenient screening tool for the evaluation, prevention, and treatment of problematic Internet use.
This is the first study in the world to investigate physical causal understanding through tool-use behavior in rats. This research has been covered by the media, including Reuters and Voice of America.
In this study, I examined the causal relationship between the activities of gloss-selective neurons and gloss perception of the macaque monkey by the manipulation of neural activities, while the monkey performed a gloss discrimination task.
Fehring et al. revealed that dimensional biases in human and macaque behaviour do not merely arise from bottom-up processing advantages and interact with working memory
When a short-wavelength light was applied to the blind spot area, the light stimulus presented in the normal visual field was perceived as darker. This study suggests that photoreception by melanopsin in the optic disc, which corresponding to the blind spot of the visual field, may have changed the perception.
CONTACT
〒351-0198
2-1 Hirosawa, Wako City, Saitama Prefecture,
RIKEN CBS East Buildings 204
Imagination & Executive Functions Lab
Mail: miyamotolab.exp@gmail.com
Tel: 050-3495-01490 (main)