Biography

Dr. Yong Gu is Senior Investigator and group leader of the Laboratory of Spatial Perception, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. After obtaining his Ph.D. at the Institute of Biophysics (CAS), he pursued postdoctoral research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. His lab investigates neural mechanisms of multisensory integration, self‑motion perception and spatial navigation in non‑human primates.

Talk Title: Vestibular and visual coding in primate’s cortex for self-motion perception

Self-motion is a crucial ability for individuals to interact with the environment. Accurate self‑motion perception relies on precise spatiotemporal alignment of vestibular and visual optic‑flow signals prior to multisensory integration. Discrepancies in timing or spatial reference frames impair heading judgment and path‑integration performance. Here I summarize our lab’s neurophysiological findings on vestibular‑visual coordination across multiple brain areas in behaving macaque monkeys. Since recording and stimulation technologies constrain what circuit‑level observations we can obtain, I compare a few major experimental approaches applied in our lab: single‑electrode, linear‑array, Neuropixels high‑density probes, and two‑photon calcium imaging. Their trade‑offs in temporal precision, spatial sampling, unit throughput, and electrical microstimulation for the purpose of causality verification will be outlined.