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Department of Neurology College of Medicine
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Yunkai Zhu

Yunkai Zhu, PhD

Postdoc Researcher

Department: MD-NEUROLOGY-EPILEPSY
Business Email: yunkaizhu@ufl.edu

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About Yunkai Zhu

Yunkai Zhu is a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Florida Department of Neurology’s MEG Laboratory, where he works under the supervision of Dr. Abbas Babajani-Feremi. He earned his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Miami.

His research focuses on using multiple neuroimaging modalities—including EEG, fMRI, and MEG—to decode and quantify human resting-state functional connectivity and task-based neural representations. His work explores cognitive processes such as top-down influences, learning, perceptual awareness, attention shifting, and the ways these representations reveal short-term neural plasticity. His recent studies investigate the potential of these neural representations to serve as spatial and temporal biomarkers for the diagnosis of dementia.

Publications

Academic Articles

  1. Testing circuit-level theories of consciousness in humans.

    Journal
    Trends in cognitive sciences.
    Volume/Issue
    30(3):226-238
    [DOI]
    10.1016/j.tics.2025.08.012.
    [PMID]
    40976753.
    1 citation PubMed Publisher’s Site

  2. Wordsworth: A generative word dataset for comparison of speech representations in humans and neural networks.

    Journal
    Scientific data.
    Volume/Issue
    12(1)
    [DOI]
    10.1038/s41597-025-05769-0.
    [PMID]
    41006308.
    1 citation PubMed Publisher’s Site

  3. Isolating Neural Signatures of Conscious Speech Perception with a No-Report Sine-Wave Speech Paradigm.

    Journal
    The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.
    Volume/Issue
    44(8)
    [DOI]
    10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0145-23.2023.
    [PMID]
    38191569.
    10 citations PubMed Publisher’s Site

  4. Connectome-Based Biomarkers Predict Subclinical Depression and Identify Abnormal Brain Connections With the Lateral Habenula and Thalamus.

    Journal
    Frontiers in psychiatry.
    Volume/Issue
    10
    [DOI]
    10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00371.
    [PMID]
    31244688.
    53 citations PubMed Publisher’s Site

Education

  1. PhD Biomedical Engineering

    University of Miaimi

  2. BS Biomedical Engineering

    Northeastern University (China)

Contact Details

Emails:
Business:
yunkaizhu@ufl.edu
Addresses:
Business Mailing:
3011 SW Williston Rd
 Gainesville FL 32608
Business Street:
3011 SW Williston Rd
 Gainesville FL 32608