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Yingying Wang

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20 papers

2 author rows

AAAI Conference 2026 Conference Paper

MMMamba: A Versatile Cross-Modal in Context Fusion Framework for Pan-Sharpening and Zero-Shot Image Enhancement

Yingying Wang
Xuanhua He
Chen Wu
Jialing Huang
Suiyun Zhang
Rui Liu
Xinghao Ding
Haoxuan Che

Pan-sharpening aims to generate high-resolution multispectral (HRMS) images by integrating a high-resolution panchromatic (PAN) image with its corresponding low-resolution multispectral (MS) image. To achieve effective fusion, it is crucial to fully exploit the complementary information between the two modalities. Traditional CNN-based methods typically rely on channel-wise concatenation with fixed convolutional operators, which limits their adaptability to diverse spatial and spectral variations. While cross-attention mechanisms enable global interactions, they are computationally inefficient and may dilute fine-grained correspondences, making it difficult to capture complex semantic relationships. Recent advances in the Multimodal Diffusion Transformer (MMDiT) architecture have demonstrated impressive success in image generation and editing tasks. Unlike cross-attention, MMDiT employs in-context conditioning to facilitate more direct and efficient cross-modal information exchange. In this paper, we propose MMMamba, a cross-modal in-context fusion framework for pan-sharpening, with the flexibility to support image super-resolution in a zero-shot manner. Built upon the Mamba architecture, our design ensures linear computational complexity while maintaining strong cross-modal interaction capacity. Furthermore, we introduce a novel multimodal interleaved (MI) scanning mechanism that facilitates effective information exchange between the PAN and MS modalities. Extensive experiments demonstrate the superior performance of our method compared to existing state-of-the-art (SOTA) techniques across multiple tasks and benchmarks.

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AAAI Conference 2026 Conference Paper

MovieGraph-ToM: Evaluating Long-Range Theory of Mind in Large Language Models via Implicit Social-Causal Graphs

Tingjiang Wei
Qin Ni
Rong Gao
Yingying Wang
Liang He

The capacity for social reasoning, particularly Theory of Mind (ToM), is a foundational prerequisite for aligning Large Language Models (LLMs) with human values. However, current evaluations are predominantly confined to simplistic, short-text scenarios, obscuring their true capabilities and potential failure modes in complex, long-range social dynamics. To address this deficit, we introduce MovieGraph-ToM, a large-scale benchmark for evaluating long-range ToM and social cognition within extended, multimodal narratives. We employ a "scaffold-and-probe" methodology: we construct a ground-truth Social-Causal Graph offline, which maps the narrative's latent mental states and causal chains. During evaluation, the model is denied access to this graph and must reason directly from raw multimodal inputs. This decoupling forces genuine inference over superficial pattern matching. Reasoning is probed via a hierarchical questioning framework designed to differentiate spontaneous understanding from logical robustness. Our empirical results reveal systematic vulnerabilities in even state-of-the-art models. We identify a critical "multiple-choice pitfall," where accuracy plummets against well-crafted distractors, and a stark "generative-discriminative divide," where models fail to construct coherent explanations for answers they correctly identify. These findings highlight a latent risk, as models that feign comprehension could lead to unpredictable and misaligned behaviors. MovieGraph-ToM thus offers a rigorous platform for assessing and advancing the robust social intelligence required for safely aligned AI systems.

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AAAI Conference 2026 Conference Paper

Self-supervised Multiplex Consensus Mamba for General Image Fusion

Yingying Wang
Rongjin Zhuang
Hui Zheng
Xuanhua He
Ke Cao
Xiaotong Tu
Xinghao Ding

Image fusion integrates complementary information from different modalities to generate high-quality fused images, thereby enhancing downstream tasks such as object detection and semantic segmentation. Unlike task-specific techniques that primarily focus on consolidating inter-modal information, general image fusion needs to address a wide range of tasks while improving performance without increasing complexity. To achieve this, we propose SMC-Mamba, a Self-supervised Multiplex Consensus Mamba framework for general image fusion. Specifically, the Modality-Agnostic Feature Enhancement (MAFE) module preserves fine details through adaptive gating and enhances global representations via spatial-channel and frequency rotational scanning. The Multiplex Consensus Cross-modal Mamba (MCCM) module enables dynamic collaboration among experts, reaching a consensus to efficiently integrate complementary information from multiple modalities. The cross-modal scanning within MCCM further strengthens feature interactions across modalities, facilitating seamless integration of critical information from both sources. Additionally, we introduce a Bi-level Self-supervised Contrastive Learning Loss (BSCL), which preserves high-frequency information without increasing computational overhead while simultaneously boosting performance in downstream tasks. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our approach outperforms state-of-the-art (SOTA) image fusion algorithms in tasks such as infrared-visible, medical, multi-focus, and multi-exposure fusion, as well as downstream visual tasks.

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AAAI Conference 2026 Conference Paper

Shaping Human–AI Collaboration in Education: Effects of AI-Assisted Decision-Making Paradigms and Human–AI Decision Consistency on Pre-Service Teachers’ Psychological States and Performance

Yingying Wang
Qin Ni
Haoxin Xu
Jiaqi Yin
Tingjiang Wei

Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important role in supporting decision-making, particularly in educational contexts, where it serves as a critical tool to assist teacher judgment and optimize instructional decisions. However, limited research has examined how different AI-assisted decision-making paradigms influence the Performance of human-AI collaboration, as well as the underlying psychological mechanisms and causal pathways. Therefore, this study investigated 59 pre-service teachers to examine how AI-assisted decision-making paradigms and human-AI consistency influenced their psychological states and task performance. Specifically, this study employed a two-factor mixed experimental design, with the AI-assisted decision-making paradigms as the between-subjects factor and human-AI consistency as the within-subjects factor. Data were analyzed using the Bayesian cumulative link mixed model and structural equation modeling. The results reveal that AI-assisted decision-making paradigms do not have a significant direct effect on task performance. However, when the moderating role of human-AI decision consistency is taken into account, the effect of AI-assisted decision-making paradigms on task performance can exert its influence indirectly through a sequential psychological pathway involving users’ confidence and their trust in the AI. Consistency between human and AI decisions not only significantly enhances users’ trust in AI, confidence, and task performance, but the proportion of consistent decisions also significantly moderates the impact of AI-assisted decision-making paradigms on users’ confidence levels. Notably, our findings indicate that users maintain a moderately level of trust in AI even when their decisions diverge from those of AI. In summary, this study highlights the mediating mechanism by which AI-assisted decision-making paradigms influence task performance through psychological states and identifies the moderating role of human-AI consistency in this pathway. These findings advance the theoretical understanding of human-AI interaction models in educational contexts and offer mechanistic insights to guide the optimization of instructional AI systems.

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AAAI Conference 2025 Conference Paper

Accelerated Diffusion via High-Low Frequency Decomposition for Pan-Sharpening

Ge Meng
Jingjia Huang
Jingyan Tu
Yingying Wang
Yunlong Lin
Xiaotong Tu
Yue Huang
Xinghao Ding

Pan-sharpening aims to preserve the spectral information of the multi-spectral (MS) image while leveraging the high-frequency details from the guided high-resolution panchromatic (PAN) image to enhance its spatial resolution. The key challenge is how to preserve the spectral information from the MS image and the spatial details from the PAN image as much as possible. Diffusion models have achieved favorable results in image restoration and synthesis tasks but suffer from excessive computational resource and time consumption. In this paper, we design a novel and computationally efficient diffusion-based pan-sharpening network that achieves accelerated diffusion while reducing task complexity by decoupling the high and low-frequency components of the fused image. Specifically, leveraging the information-preserving characteristic of the wavelet transformation, we introduce a Wavelet-based Low-frequency Diffusion Model (WLDM). WLDM generates the low-frequency coefficient of high-resolution MS (HRMS) image from the low-resolution MS (LRMS) image. This approach significantly reduces computational resources and complexity compared to the direct restoration of the HRMS image. Furthermore, we have devised a High-frequency Information Restoration Module (HIRM) to restore the high-frequency information in the HRMS image through the interaction of high-frequency coefficients from the PAN image in three directions. Extensive experiments on three different datasets demonstrate that our method outperforms existing approaches in both quantitative metrics, qualitative metrics, and inference efficiency.

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AAAI Conference 2025 Conference Paper

AGLLDiff: Guiding Diffusion Models Towards Unsupervised Training-free Real-world Low-light Image Enhancement

Yunlong Lin
Tian Ye
Sixiang Chen
Zhenqi Fu
Yingying Wang
Wenhao Chai
Zhaohu Xing
Wenxue Li

Existing low-light image enhancement (LIE) methods have achieved noteworthy success in solving synthetic distortions, yet they often fall short in practical applications. The limitations arise from two inherent challenges in real-world LIE: 1) the collection of distorted/clean image pairs is often impractical and sometimes even unavailable, and 2) accurately modeling complex degradations presents a non-trivial problem. To overcome them, we propose the Attribute Guidance Diffusion framework (AGLLDiff), a training-free method for effective real-world LIE. Instead of specifically defining the degradation process, AGLLDiff shifts the paradigm and models the desired attributes, such as image exposure, structure and color of normal-light images. These attributes are readily available and impose no assumptions about the degradation process, which guides the diffusion sampling process to a reliable high-quality solution space. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our approach outperforms the current leading unsupervised LIE methods across benchmarks in terms of distortion-based and perceptual-based metrics, and it performs well even in sophisticated wild degradation.

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AAAI Conference 2025 Conference Paper

DPLUT: Unsupervised Low-light Image Enhancement with Lookup Tables and Diffusion Priors

Yunlong Lin
Zhenqi Fu
Kairun Wen
Tian Ye
Sixiang Chen
Ge Meng
Yingying Wang
Chui Kong

Low-light image enhancement (LIE) aims at precisely and efficiently recovering an image degraded in poor illumination environments. Recent advanced LIE techniques are using deep neural networks, which require lots of low-normal light image pairs, network parameters, and computational resources. As a result, their practicality is limited. In this work, we devise a novel unsupervised LIE framework based on diffusion priors and lookup tables (DPLUT) to achieve efficient low-light image recovery. The proposed approach comprises two critical components: a light adjustment lookup table (LLUT) and a noise suppression lookup table (NLUT). LLUT is optimized with a set of unsupervised losses. It aims at predicting pixel-wise curve parameters for the dynamic range adjustment of a specific image. NLUT is designed to remove the amplified noise after the light brightens. As diffusion models are sensitive to noise, diffusion priors are introduced to achieve high-performance noise suppression. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our approach outperforms state-of-the-art methods in terms of visual quality and efficiency.

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IJCAI Conference 2025 Conference Paper

Frequency-Aware Deep Depth from Focus

Tao Yan
Yingying Wang
Jiangfeng Zhang
Yuhua Qian
Jieru Jia
Lu Chen
Feijiang Li

In large aperture imaging, the shallow depth of field (DoF) phenomenon requires capturing multiple images at different focal levels, allowing us to infer depth information using depth from focus (DFF) techniques. However, most previous works design convolutional neural networks from a time domain perspective, often leading to blurred fine details in depth estimation. In this work, we propose a frequency-aware deep DFF network (FAD) that couples multi-scale spatial domain local features with frequency domain global structural features. Our main innovations include two key points: First, we introduce a frequency domain feature extraction module that uses the Fourier transform to transfer latent focus features into the frequency domain. This module adaptively captures essential frequency information for focus changes through element-wise multiplication, enhancing fine details in depth results while preserving global structural integrity. Second, the time-frequency joint module of FAD improves the consistency of depth information in sparse texture regions and the continuity in transition areas from both local and global complementary perspectives. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that our model achieves compelling generalization and state-of-the-art depth prediction across various datasets. Additionally, it can be quickly adapted to real-world applications as a pre-trained model.

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NeurIPS Conference 2025 Conference Paper

FRN: Fractal-Based Recursive Spectral Reconstruction Network

Ge Meng
Zhongnan Cai
Ruizhe Chen
Jingyan Tu
Yingying Wang
Yue Huang
Xinghao Ding

Generating hyperspectral images (HSIs) from RGB images through spectral reconstruction can significantly reduce the cost of HSI acquisition. In this paper, we propose a Fractal-Based Recursive Spectral Reconstruction Network (FRN), which differs from existing paradigms that attempt to directly integrate the full-spectrum information from the R, G, and B channels in a one-shot manner. Instead, it treats spectral reconstruction as a progressive process, predicting from broad to narrow bands or employing a coarse-to-fine approach for predicting the next wavelength. Inspired by fractals in mathematics, FRN establishes a novel spectral reconstruction paradigm by recursively invoking an atomic reconstruction module. In each invocation, only the spectral information from neighboring bands is used to provide clues for the generation of the image at the next wavelength, which follows the low-rank property of spectral data. Moreover, we design a band-aware state space model that employs a pixel-differentiated scanning strategy at different stages of the generation process, further suppressing interference from low-correlation regions caused by reflectance differences. Through extensive experimentation across different datasets, FRN achieves superior reconstruction performance compared to state-of-the-art methods. Code is available at https: //github. com/mongko007/frn.

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NeurIPS Conference 2025 Conference Paper

Pan-LUT: Efficient Pan-sharpening via Learnable Look-Up Tables

Zhongnan Cai
Yingying Wang
Hui Zheng
Panwang Pan
Zixu Lin
Ge Meng
Chenxin Li
Chunming He

Recently, deep learning-based pan-sharpening algorithms have achieved notable advancements over traditional methods. However, deep learning-based methods incur substantial computational overhead during inference, especially with large images. This excessive computational demand limits the applicability of these methods in real-world scenarios, particularly in the absence of dedicated computing devices such as GPUs and TPUs. To address these challenges, we propose Pan-LUT, a novel learnable look-up table (LUT) framework for pan-sharpening that strikes a balance between performance and computational efficiency for large remote sensing images. Our method makes it possible to process 15K$\times$15K remote sensing images on a 24GB GPU. To finely control the spectral transformation, we devise the PAN-guided look-up table (PGLUT) for channel-wise spectral mapping. To effectively capture fine-grained spatial details, we introduce the spatial details look-up table (SDLUT). Furthermore, to adaptively aggregate channel information for generating high-resolution multispectral images, we design an adaptive output look-up table (AOLUT). Our model contains fewer than 700K parameters and processes a 9K$\times$9K image in under 1 ms using one RTX 2080 Ti GPU, demonstrating significantly faster performance compared to other methods. Experiments reveal that Pan-LUT efficiently processes large remote sensing images in a lightweight manner, bridging the gap to real-world applications. Furthermore, our model surpasses SOTA methods in full-resolution scenes under real-world conditions, highlighting its effectiveness and efficiency. We also extend our method to general image fusion tasks.

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IROS Conference 2025 Conference Paper

Physics-Informed LSTM for Shape and Contact Force Prediction of a Flexible Surgical Robot *

Feng Ju
Chen Wang
Yingying Wang
Yuxing Wang
Liping Ding

Real-time morphological perception and precise end force feedback prediction of surgical robots constitute critical technical elements for ensuring safety and efficacy in complex interventional procedures such as Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). In this paper, we design a miniature flexible surgical robot (FSR) with a nested spring structure and proposed a physics-informed deep learning approach to simultaneously predict both the FSR's shape and 2D contact forces at its end-effector. The physical constraints were derived from a quasi-static model of the FSR, which is capable of characterizing persistent environmental interactions. Our method eliminates the need for end-effector sensors, not only ensuring high accuracy in both shape and contact force predictions but also maintaining consistent predictive performance under continuous environmental interactions. Experimental validation of the method revealed a high consistency between predicted values and reference data, achieving a 34. 97% improvement in computational speed and a maximum prediction accuracy enhancement of 71. 64% compared to conventional LSTM approaches.

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AAAI Conference 2025 Conference Paper

Sp3ctralMamba: Physics-Driven Joint State Space Model for Hyperspectral Image Reconstruction

Ge Meng
Jingyan Tu
Jingjia Huang
Yunlong Lin
Yingying Wang
Xiaotong Tu
Yue Huang
Xinghao Ding

Hyperspectral image (HSI) reconstruction aims to restore the original 3D HSIs from the 2D hyperspectral snapshot compressive images (SCIs). The key to high-fidelity HSI reconstruction lies in designing refined spatial and spectral attention mechanisms, which are crucial for generating fine-grained representations of HSI based on the limited spatial and spectral information available in SCI. Recently, Mamba has demonstrated remarkable performance and efficiency in modeling spatial correlations. Its implicit attention mechanism generates three orders of magnitude more attention matrices than transformers, significantly raising the performance ceiling for HSI reconstruction. In this paper, we propose a novel joint SSM network named Sp3ctralMamba for HSI reconstruction. Sp3ctralMamba integrates frequency domain knowledge and physical priors to enhance reconstruction quality. Specifically, we first perform hierarchical decomposition of the 3D HSI embedding to mitigate the negative impact of distant bands on reconstruction. Next, we design a joint SSM block S3Mamba (S3MAB) to perform parallel scans of the embeddings from different bands. In addition to the conventional vanilla scan, S3MAB introduces a local scanning scheme to address the reconstruction challenges posed by the spatial sparsity of spectral information. Furthermore, a spiral scanning scheme in the frequency domain is incorporated to enhance the order correlation between different frequency signals. Finally, we introduce energy priors and structural priors to constrain the generation of spectral and spatial representations during the training process. Extensive experiments on both simulated and real datasets demonstrate that Sp3ctralMamba significantly elevates HSI reconstruction performance to a new level, surpassing SOTA methods in both quantitative and qualitative metrics.

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YNIMG Journal 2024 Journal Article

Action expectancy modulates activity in the mirror neuron system and mentalizing system

Hong Mou
Likai Liu
Ting Zhou
Zhurui Yan
Yingying Wang

Action understanding involves two distinct processing levels that engage separate neural mechanisms: perception of concrete kinematic information and recognition of abstract action intentions. The mirror neuron system and the mentalizing system have both been linked to concrete action and abstract information processing, but their specific roles remain debatable. Here, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study with 26 participants who passively observed expected and unexpected actions. We performed whole-brain activation, region of interest, and effective connectivity analyses to investigate the neural correlates of these actions. Whole-brain activation analyses revealed that expected actions were associated with increased activation in the left medial superior frontal gyrus, while unexpected actions were linked to heightened activity in the left supramarginal gyrus, left superior parietal lobule, right inferior temporal gyrus, and left middle frontal gyrus. Region of interest analyses demonstrated that the left ventral premotor cortex exhibited greater activation during the observation of expected actions compared to unexpected actions, while the left inferior frontal gyrus, left superior parietal lobule, and left precuneus showed stronger activation during the observation of unexpected actions. Effective connectivity was observed between the left ventral premotor cortex and the left angular gyrus, left intraparietal sulcus, left dorsal premotor cortex, and left ventromedial prefrontal cortex with the middle frontal gyrus when observing unexpected, but not expected, actions. These findings suggest that expected actions are primarily processed by the mirror neuron system, whereas unexpected actions engage both the mirror neuron system and the mentalizing system, with these systems playing complementary roles in the understanding of unexpected actions.

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AAAI Conference 2024 Conference Paper

Progressive High-Frequency Reconstruction for Pan-Sharpening with Implicit Neural Representation

Ge Meng
Jingjia Huang
Yingying Wang
Zhenqi Fu
Xinghao Ding
Yue Huang

Pan-sharpening aims to leverage the high-frequency signal of the panchromatic (PAN) image to enhance the resolution of its corresponding multi-spectral (MS) image. However, deep neural networks (DNNs) tend to prioritize learning the low-frequency components during the training process, which limits the restoration of high-frequency edge details in MS images. To overcome this limitation, we treat pan-sharpening as a coarse-to-fine high-frequency restoration problem and propose a novel method for achieving high-quality restoration of edge information in MS images. Specifically, to effectively obtain fine-grained multi-scale contextual features, we design a Band-limited Multi-scale High-frequency Generator (BMHG) that generates high-frequency signals from the PAN image within different bandwidths. During training, higher-frequency signals are progressively injected into the MS image, and corresponding residual blocks are introduced into the network simultaneously. This design enables gradients to flow from later to earlier blocks smoothly, encouraging intermediate blocks to concentrate on missing details. Furthermore, to address the issue of pixel position misalignment arising from multi-scale features fusion, we propose a Spatial-spectral Implicit Image Function (SIIF) that employs implicit neural representation to effectively represent and fuse spatial and spectral features in the continuous domain. Extensive experiments on different datasets demonstrate that our method outperforms existing approaches in terms of quantitative and visual measurements for high-frequency detail recovery.

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EAAI Journal 2024 Journal Article

Spatio-temporal features for fast early warning of unplanned self-extubation in ICU

Yang Chen
Ling Wang
Guorong Wang
Shuang Yang
Yingying Wang
MingFang Xiang
Xuan Zhang
Hui Chen

Patients’ behaviors in the Intensive Care Units (ICU) have garnered research attention, particularly regarding the impact of Unplanned Extubation (UEX). However, there is currently no existing report on methods for early warning of UEX action in RGB video. Applying traditional human action recognition algorithms to UEX in the complex ICU environment proves challenging. To address the above issue, we propose a novel feature for early warning of UEX action in patients using RGB videos. Firstly, we employ the YOLOv3 detection method to extract the region of interest (ROI), which corresponds to the region where the patient is located. Subsequently, we develop a spatio-temporal (ST) feature for human action tracking by using the L-K optical flow algorithm. This ST feature encompasses optical flow corner number, trajectory distance, and wavelet transform features. Finally, we utilize support vector machine (SVM) for patient action classification and early warning. Experimental results on the ICU monitoring dataset demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed feature in UEX prediction.

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YNICL Journal 2024 Journal Article

Static and dynamic interactions within the triple-network model in stroke patients with multidomain cognitive impairments

Yingying Wang
Hongxu Chen
Caihong Wang
Jingchun Liu
Peifang Miao
Ying Wei
Luobing Wu
Xin Wang

BACKGROUND: Internal capsule strokes often result in multidomain cognitive impairments across memory, attention, and executive function, typically due to disruptions in brain network connectivity. Our study examines these impairments by analyzing interactions within the triple-network model, focusing on both static and dynamic aspects. METHODS: We collected resting-state fMRI data from 62 left (CI_L) and 56 right (CI_R) internal capsule stroke patients, along with 57 healthy controls (HC). Using independent component analysis to extract the default mode (DMN), executive control (ECN), and salience networks (SAN), we conducted static and dynamic functional network connectivity analyses (DFNC) to identify differences between stroke patients and controls. For DFNC, we used k-means clustering to focus on temporal properties and multilayer network analysis to examine integration and modularity Q, where integration represents dynamic interactions between networks, and modularity Q measures how well the network is divided into distinct modules. We then calculated the correlations between SFNC/DFNC properties with significant inter-group differences and cognitive scales. RESULTS: Compared to HC, both CI_L and CI_R patients showed increased static FCs between SAN and DMN and decreased dynamic interactions between ECN and other networks. CI_R patients also had heightened static FCs between SAN and ECN and maintained a state with strongly positive FNCs across all networks in the triple-network model. Additionally, CI_R patients displayed decreased modularity Q. CONCLUSION: These findings highlight that stroke can result in the disruption of static and dynamic interactions in the triple network model, aiding our understanding of the neuropathological basis for multidomain cognitive deficits after internal capsule stroke.

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YNIMG Journal 2023 Journal Article

Mapping multidimensional content representations to neural and behavioral expressions of episodic memory

Yingying Wang
Hongmi Lee
Brice A. Kuhl

Human neuroimaging studies have shown that the contents of episodic memories are represented in distributed patterns of neural activity. However, these studies have mostly been limited to decoding simple, unidimensional properties of stimuli. Semantic encoding models, in contrast, offer a means for characterizing the rich, multidimensional information that comprises episodic memories. Here, we extensively sampled four human fMRI subjects to build semantic encoding models and then applied these models to reconstruct content from natural scene images as they were viewed and recalled from memory. First, we found that multidimensional semantic information was successfully reconstructed from activity patterns across visual and lateral parietal cortices, both when viewing scenes and when recalling them from memory. Second, whereas visual cortical reconstructions were much more accurate when images were viewed versus recalled from memory, lateral parietal reconstructions were comparably accurate across visual perception and memory. Third, by applying natural language processing methods to verbal recall data, we showed that fMRI-based reconstructions reliably matched subjects' verbal descriptions of their memories. In fact, reconstructions from ventral temporal cortex more closely matched subjects' own verbal recall than other subjects' verbal recall of the same images. Fourth, encoding models reliably transferred across subjects: memories were successfully reconstructed using encoding models trained on data from entirely independent subjects. Together, these findings provide evidence for successful reconstructions of multidimensional and idiosyncratic memory representations and highlight the differential sensitivity of visual cortical and lateral parietal regions to information derived from the external visual environment versus internally-generated memories.

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YNICL Journal 2020 Journal Article

An imbalance between functional segregation and integration in patients with pontine stroke: A dynamic functional network connectivity study

Yingying Wang
Caihong Wang
Peifang Miao
Jingchun Liu
Ying Wei
Luobing Wu
Kaiyu Wang
Jingliang Cheng

BACKGROUND: Previous studies on brain functional connectivity have revealed the neural physiopathology in patients with pontine stroke (PS). However, those studies focused only on the static features of intrinsic fluctuations, rather than on the time-varying effects throughout the entire scan. In the present study, we sought to explore the underlying mechanism of PS using the dynamic functional network connectivity (dFNC) method. METHODS: Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were collected from 58 patients with PS and 52 healthy controls (HC). Independent component analysis (ICA), the sliding window method, and k-means clustering analysis were performed to extract different functional networks, to calculate dFNC matrices, and to estimate distinct dynamic connectivity states. Additionally, temporal features were compared between the two groups in each state to explore the brain's preference for different dynamic connectivity states in PS, and global and local efficiency were compared among states to explore the differences of topologic organization across different dFNC states. The correlations between clinical scales and the temporal features that differed between the two groups also were calculated. RESULTS: The dFNC analyses suggested four recurring states; in two of these states, the PS group showed a different duration from that of the HC group. Patients with PS spent significantly more time in a sparsely connected state (State 1), which was characterized by relatively low levels of connectivity within and between all brain networks. In contrast, patients with PS spent significantly less time in a highly segregated state (State 2), which was characterized by high levels of positive connectivities within primary perceptional domains and within higher cognitive control domains, and by high levels of negative inter-functional connectivities (inter-FCs) among primary perceptional and higher cognitive control domains. Additionally, the dwell time in State 2 was positively correlated with HC group's long-term memory scores in the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT-L), whereas there was no correlation between the State-2 dwell time and RAVLT-L scores in the PS group. Furthermore, the sparsely connected state and the highly segregated state mentioned above had the highest global efficiency and the highest local efficiency among the four states, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: In summary, we observed a preference in the aberrant brain for dynamic connectivity states with different network topologic organization in patients with PS, indicating abnormal functional segregation and integration of the whole brain and confirming the imperfection of functional network connectivity in patients with PS. These findings provide new evidence for the dynamic neural mechanisms underlying clinical symptoms in patients with PS.

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YNIMG Journal 2019 Journal Article

Predicting domain-specific actions in expert table tennis players activates the semantic brain network

Yingying Wang
Yingzhi Lu
Yuqin Deng
Nan Gu
Tiina Parviainen
Chenglin Zhou

Motor expertise acquired during long-term training in sports enables top athletes to predict the outcomes of domain-specific actions better than nonexperts do. However, whether expert players encode actions, in addition to the concrete sensorimotor level, also at a more abstract, conceptual level, remains unclear. The present study manipulated the congruence between body kinematics and the subsequent ball trajectory in videos of an expert player performing table tennis serves. By using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the brain activity was evaluated in expert and nonexpert table tennis players during their predictions on the fate of the ball trajectory in congruent versus incongruent videos. Compared with novices, expert players showed greater activation in the sensorimotor areas (right precentral and postcentral gyri) in the comparison between incongruent vs. congruent videos. They also showed greater activation in areas related to semantic processing: the posterior inferior parietal lobe (angular gyrus), middle temporal gyrus, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. These findings indicate that action anticipation in expert table tennis players engages both semantic and sensorimotor regions and suggests that skilled action observation in sports utilizes predictions both at motor-kinematic and conceptual levels.

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YNICL Journal 2015 Journal Article

Increased resting-state functional connectivity of visual- and cognitive-control brain networks after training in children with reading difficulties

Tzipi Horowitz-Kraus
Mark DiFrancesco
Benjamin Kay
Yingying Wang
Scott K. Holland

The Reading Acceleration Program, a computerized reading-training program, increases activation in neural circuits related to reading. We examined the effect of the training on the functional connectivity between independent components related to visual processing, executive functions, attention, memory, and language during rest after the training. Children 8-12 years old with reading difficulties and typical readers participated in the study. Behavioral testing and functional magnetic resonance imaging were performed before and after the training. Imaging data were analyzed using an independent component analysis approach. After training, both reading groups showed increased single-word contextual reading and reading comprehension scores. Greater positive correlations between the visual-processing component and the executive functions, attention, memory, or language components were found after training in children with reading difficulties. Training-related increases in connectivity between the visual and attention components and between the visual and executive function components were positively correlated with increased word reading and reading comprehension, respectively. Our findings suggest that the effect of the Reading Acceleration Program on basic cognitive domains can be detected even in the absence of an ongoing reading task.

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