Bio
Jess Yu is pursuing a PhD in information theory and neuroscience at Imperial College London, under the supervision of Prof. Simon Schultz and Dr. Pedro Mediano. Her research focuses on the intersection of information theory and neuroscience, particularly in partial information decomposition. Prior to that, she worked in Prof. Aldo Faisal’s lab, developing variational autoencoder architectures to predict visual cortical anatomy and neural coding, and in Prof. Steven Niederer’s lab on a digital twins project.
Research interests
Understanding memory encoding and recall processes in the hippocampus is pivotal for unraveling brain function. A key breakthrough in information theory is the realisation that information is not monolithic, different types of information exist, specifically through information decomposition. Jess’s research focuses on deciphering the dynamics of memory encoding and recall in the hippocampus while exploring how abnormal network activity affects information processing in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's Disease. To that end, Jess’s research project aims to develop neural network models inspired by hippocampal cells dynamics, integrating information theory to explore spatial memory deterioration in AD and revealing crucial neural dynamics.