UCL-CNT Early Career Investigator Award in Neuroimaging Techniques 2020 presented to Yunzhe Liu

Excerpt from the nomination statement by Prof. Raymond J Dolan: 

In his paper, “Human replay spontaneously reorganizes experience” [1] Yunzhe showed, for the first time, that fast replay of prior experience could be measured in the human brain. More importantly, he went beyond what is known from animal research to show that replay is not simply a recapitulation of prior experience but represents an inference as to the underlying structure of this experience. This paper has opened many rich avenues for future studies.

Yunzhe’s major methodological contributions include developing a sophisticated method not only to index neural reactivation, but also to determine its sequentially. This tool is equally applicable to human neurophysiological or animal neurophysiological data [2].

Crucially, the aforementioned methodological breakthrough has now enabled him to make novel discoveries in the field of decision-making. For example, in “Experience replay is associated with efficient nonlocal learning” [3], he has discovered a neural signature for experience replay that accounts for non-local learning in a manner that explains credit assignment.

Building on this body of work he has also made a significant breakthrough in determining the functional relevance of activity within the Default Mode Network (DMN). In “Replay bursts in humans coincide with activation of the default mode and parietal alpha networks” [4] he has provided the first demonstration that enhanced activity in this network is coupled to the onset of sequential replay.