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Unit for Experimental Psychiatry
Faculty
Hengyi Rao, PhD
Research Associate in Cognitive NeuroImaging
Division of Sleep and Chronobiology, Department of Psychiatry
& Center for Functional NeuroImaging, Department of Neurology University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Hengyi Rao, PhD, is a Research Associate in Psychiatry in the School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Rao received his degree in Biophysics and Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Science and Technology of China, China. Dr. Rao trained at Beijing Laboratory of Cognitive Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and worked as the assistant professor in Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University in China until 2004 before moving to the United States. Before the Research Associate in Psychiatry, Dr. Rao was a postdoctoral research fellow in Center for Functional NeuroImaging in University of Pennsylvania.
It is the prospects of functional brain research to understand the nature of human and improve the life and health that attract Dr. Rao to select his career. Dr. Rao's research investigates the neurobiological bases of human cognition, emotion and behavior. He is skilled in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and cognitive neuroscience, and is interested in integrating multiple neuroimaging and electrophysiological research techniques (primarily ASL perfusion fMRI and BOLD fMRI, also EEG/ERP, PET, and TMS) as well as the behavioral paradigms and genetic methods to understand the neural activation patterns in human brain. He has recently conducted and published several studies in the application and combination of fMRI and EEG/ERP, fMRI and structural MRI, fMRI and genotype, concurrent perfusion and BOLD fMRI, concurrent fMRI and PET. Taking advantage of perfusion fMRI for measuring quantitative neural activity during both resting and performing tasks, and combining perfusion and BOLD fMRI with structural MRI and EEG/ERP recordings, Dr. Rao is interested to track the brain development and functional activity in terms of multiple modality and multiple time-scale.
After join Division of Sleep and Chronobiology, Dr. Rao is going to apply his expert in functional brain imaging for sleep research. Specifically, he is interested in the neurobiological basis of sleep, the effect of sleep on learning and memory, and the effect of sleep deprivation on human cognition, emotion and behavior. More recently, Dr. Rao conducted a study and revealed how human brain takes risk and makes decision. He is currently working on a protocol to investigate whether and how sleep deprivation affects risk taking and decision making in the brain.
Dr. Rao is a member of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, the Organization for Human Brain Mapping, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, and the Chinese Psychological Society. He is the adhoc reviewer of several journals in neuroimaging and psychiatry, and the adhoc reviewer of Chinese National Science Foundation.
Research Interests
Functional brain imaging, sleep and brain, sleep and learning, sleep and memory, sleep deprivation, default brain function, dynamic information processing in brain, risk-taking and decision-making in brain, brain development, brain and genetic variation, depression.
Selected Bibliography: (Peer-Reviewed, 2003-present)
Zhuo Y, Zhou T, Rao H, Wang J, Meng M, Chen M, Zhou M, Chen L. (2003). Contributions of the Visual Ventral Pathway to Long-range Apparent Motion. Science, 299: 417-420.
Rao H, Zhou T, Zhuo Y, Fan S, Chen L. (2003). Spatiotemporal Activation of the Two Visual Pathways in Form Discrimination and Spatial Location: A Brain Mapping Study. Human Brain Mapping, 18: 79-89.
Rao H, Han S, Jiang Y, Xue Y, Gu H, Cui Y, Gao D. (2004). Engagement of the Prefrontal Cortex in Representational Momentum: An fMRI Study. NeuroImage, 23: 98-103.
Han S, Jiang Y, Gu H, Rao H, Mao L, Cui Y, Zhai R. (2004). The Role of Human Parietal Cortex in Attention Networks. Brain, 127: 650-659.
Wang J, Rao H, Wetmore GS, Furlan PM, Korczykowski M, Dinges DF, Detre JA. (2005). The Stressed Brain: Perfusion FMRI Reveals Cerebral Blood Flow Pattern under Psychological Stress. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA . 102: 17804-17809.
Newberg A, Wang J, Rao H, Swanson RL, Wintering N, Karp JS, Alavi A, Greenberg JH, Detre JA. (2005). Concurrent CBF and CMRGlc Changes during Human Brain Activation by Combined fMRI-PET Scanning. NeuroImage. 28: 500-506.
Fernandez-Seara MA, Wang Z, Wang J, Rao H, Guenther M, Feinberg DA, Detre JA. (2005). Continues Arterial Spin Labeling Perfusion Measurements Using Single Shot 3D Grase at 3T. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. 54: 1241-1247.
Rao H, Wang J, Tang K, Pan W, Detre JA. (2006). Imaging Brain Activity during Natural Vision Using CASL Perfusion fMRI. Human Brain Mapping. In press.
Chan RC, Rao H, Chen EH, Ye B, Zhang C. (2006). The neural basis of motor sequencing: An fMRI Study of healthy subjects. Neuroscience Letters. 398: 189-194.
Olson IR, Rao H, Sledge MK, Wang J, Detre JA. (2006). Using Perfusion fMRI to Measure Continuous Changes in Neural Activity with Learning. Brain and Cognition. 60: 262-271.
Kim J, Whyte J, Wang J, Rao H, Tang K, Detre JA. (2006). Continuous ASL Perfusion fMRI Investigation of Higher Cognition: Quantification of Tonic CBF Changes during Sustained Attention and Working Memory Tasks. NeuroImage. 31: 376-385.
Wang Z, Wang J, Calhoun V, Rao H, Detre JA, Childress AR. (2006). Strategies for Reducing Large fMRI Data Sets for Independent Component Analysis. Magnetic Resonance Imaging. 24: 591-596.
Rao H, Gillihan SJ, Wang J, Korczykowski M, Sankoorikal GM, Kaercher KA, Brodkin ES, Detre JA, Farah MJ. (2006). Genetic Variation in Serotonin Transporter Impacts Default Amygdala Function in Healthy Brain. Biological Psychiatry . Accepted pending minor revision.
Rao H, Wang J, Korczykowski M, Giannetta J, Shera D, Avants B, Gee J, Detre JA, Hurt H. (2006). Altered Resting Cerebral Blood Flow in Adolescents with In-utero Cocaine Exposure Revealed by Perfusion Functional MRI. Pediatrics . Accepted pending minor revision.