Hi, it's Xiaoxuan.


I am a Ph.D. candidate working at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Computational Neuroscience at McGill University and Mila - Quebec AI Institute

My research focuses on developing brain encoding-decoding models of working memory in multi-task settings and unraveling the representation principles that govern compositional generalization in both biological and artificial agents.

Broadly, I am interested in developing tools in understanding the computational mechanisms underlying cognitive flexibility, decision-making, and memory, which are fundamental to intelligent systems. As a valuable testbed, scaled models provide an opportunity for exploration, and I actively work on integrating neuroscience insights to advance their mechanistic interpretation.I am always open to discussions and collaborations—feel free to reach out!

I keep following the latest advancements in Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) hardware, exploring how technological progress can push the boundaries of cognitive augmentation and, ultimately, the feasibility of “uploading the brain.” 🧠 🚀

Education

Ph.D. in Neural-AI McGill University & Mila - Quebec AI Institute, Canada
Supervised by Pouya Bashivan and Pierre Bellec 2021 – Present

Dual-Degree Research Master's in Computational Neuroscience & Artificial Intelligence
Radboud University Nijmegen & Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior, the Netherlands
Supervised by Marcel van Gerven and Paul Tiesinga 2018 – 2020

B.Sc. in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics Minor in Computer Science
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Founding undergraduate class 2014 – 2018

For full details, see my CV.

Selected Publications

The Application of ChatGPT in Responding to Questions Related to the Boston Bowel Preparation Scale
Xiaoqiang Liu, Yubin Wang, Zicheng Huang, Boming Xu, Yilin Zeng, Xinqi Chen, Zilong Wang, Enning Yang, Xiaoxuan Lei, Yisen Huang, Xiaobo Liu
arXiv 2024   Paper
iWISDM: Assessing instruction following in multimodal models at scale.
Xiaoxuan Lei, Lucas Gomez, Mark Bai, Pouya Bashivan
CoLLAs 2024   Paper
Geometry of naturalistic object representations in recurrent neural network models of working memory
Xiaoxuan Lei, Takuya Ito, Pouya Bashivan
NeurIPS 2024   Paper