How does the brain extract relevant visual features from the rich, dynamic visual input that typifies active exploration, and how does the neural representation of these features support visual navigation?
Yuchen Hou is a PhD student in Computer Science at UC Santa Barbara. She is interested in computational neuroscience and machine learning. Her research goal is to model the dynamics of brain functions by integrating knowledge from computer, cognitive, and neural science.
Prior to pursuing her PhD studies, she was an undergraduate research assistant in the Bionic Vision Lab with a BS degree in Psychological & Brain Sciences.
In her free time, she likes reading fiction books and watching action movies.
PhD in Computer Science, 2027 (expected)
University of California, Santa Barbara
BS in Psychological & Brain Sciences, 2022
University of California, Santa Barbara
How does the brain extract relevant visual features from the rich, dynamic visual input that typifies active exploration, and how does the neural representation of these features support visual navigation?
What do visual prosthesis users see, and why? Clinical studies have shown that the vision provided by current devices differs substantially from normal sight.
Understanding the visual system in health and disease is a key issue for neuroscience and neuroengineering applications such as visual prostheses.
We introduce two computational models designed to accurately predict phosphene fading and persistence under varying stimulus conditions, cross-validated on behavioral data reported by nine users of the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System.
Yuchen Hou, Laya Pullela, Jiaxin Su, Sriya Aluru, Shivani Sista, Xiankun Lu, Michael Beyeler IEEE EMBC ‘24
(Note: YH and LP contributed equally to this work.)
We retrospectively analyzed phosphene shape data collected form three Argus II patients to investigate which neuroanatomical and stimulus parameters predict paired-phosphene appearance and whether phospehenes add up linearly.
Yuchen Hou, Devyani Nanduri, Jacob Granley, James D. Weiland, Michael Beyeler Journal of Neural Engineering
We introduce a multimodal recurrent neural network that integrates gaze-contingent visual input with behavioral and temporal dynamics to explain V1 activity in freely moving mice.
Aiwen Xu, Yuchen Hou, Cristopher M. Niell, Michael Beyeler 37th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) ‘23