Xinyuan Yan
PhD · Postdoctoral Researcher, Baylor College of Medicine
About
A normal person. Find science fascinating. A passerby on Earth.
For the past decade I have been learning how to do science — first through fMRI and behavioral modeling of social value learning and decision-making, more recently through intracranial recordings of human uncertainty, value, and concept representations in collaboration with Dr. Sameer Sheth and Dr. Ben Hayden at Baylor College of Medicine.
What I hope to spend the rest of my life thinking about: how the brain represents multimodal concepts; why and how different languages — spoken and signed — converge on the same conceptual space; how new concepts are learned and stably maintained; and how concepts link to affect.
My Light
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
— Galatians 5:22–23 (ESV)
Featured Publications
Distinct computational mechanisms of uncertainty processing explain opposing exploratory behaviors in anxiety and apathy
Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging · 2025
Distinct computational mechanisms underlie exploration deficits in anxiety vs. apathy. Anxiety increases sensitivity to environmental uncertainty, driving excessive exploration; apathy reduces sensitivity to reward information, causing exploitation of known options.
Neural representations of the multidimensional self in the cortical midline structures
NeuroImage · 2018, 183: 291–299
Representational similarity analysis of fMRI data showed that mPFC and PCC patterns distinguish self from others and discriminate dimensions (traits, physical attributes, social roles) of self-knowledge — suggesting distinct codes for identity-sensitive vs. dimension-sensitive self-representations.
Placebo treatment facilitates social trust and approach behavior
PNAS · 2018, 115(22): 5732–5737
The mere belief in receiving a pro-social drug increases social trust and approach behavior toward strangers — revealing how expectation shapes interpersonal behavior independent of pharmacological action.