Jingyi Wang, PhD

Jingyi received her Ph.D. in 2020 under the mentorship of Helen Barbas at Boston University. Her graduate work in neuroanatomy identified novel pathways connecting the hippocampus, amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex in rhesus monkeys, and delineated the contributions of this network for emotional memory, motivation, and the representation of internal states.

Jingyi continued her research on the canonical circuitry mediating the interaction between cognitive control, emotion, and memory at the University of California, Santa Barbara under the supervision of Dr. Regina Lapate as a postdoctoral fellow. Using fMRI and psychophysiological measures with human subjects, Jingyi is investigating how the frontal pole interacts with cingulate cortex and amygdala during emotion regulation, as well as the impact of amygdala function on hippocampal temporal coding. Moreover, Jingyi is currently working on a project investigating whether and how the circuitry involving the amygdala, ventral putamen, and motor areas mediates the facilitatory role of emotion on motor performance. This research explores a potential pathway that may underlie the paradoxical kinesia observed in patients with Parkinson’s Disease.