Yang Jiang, Ph.D.

(Miami Univ. (OH), Psychology 1995; Postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School, Catholic University of America, and National Institute of Mental Health)

113 Medical Behavioral Science Building
Phone: (859) 257-2122
Email: yjiang@uky.edu

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Research Description

Dr. Jiang’s research focuses on understanding the neural mechanisms underlying visual perception and cognition in healthy and clinical populations. Her lab is using approaches of psychophysics and cognitive neuroscience, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and event-related potentials (ERPs).  The current projects include developing neurosignatures of memory malfunction and cognitive impairment due to aging or brain damage, and measuring individual differences in behavior, brain responses and genetics associated with cognitive and affective processes.

2008 Accomplishments

Dr. Jiang’s research was highly productive in 2008.  She published eight peer-reviewed papers (four as first-author and three as senior author), two of which appeared in the top journals in cognitive neuroscience.  Two additional review papers were published.  Five additional manuscripts are currently under review or revision in peer-reviewed journals. She presented five papers at international conferences, including an oral presentation at the Annual Meeting of Society for Neuroscience. She continues to serve as Co-PI on EEG recordings on the dementia patients project (funded by the DoE), and as a co-investigator on two NIDA funded projects that are examining the biological basis of sensation-seeking personality.  She has broadened her scope, to link basic research with clinical research.  She is listed as PI on six new grant applications to NIH, the Alzheimer’s Association, and the National Science Foundation.   She is a project leader (Project 3) in a program grant application (Program director C. Smith) to NIA.  NIH Reviewers commented that “she has been very productive”, and her project “is new, creative and potentially promising, most methods are state of the art…”. “with strong potential clinical significance”. The project will be resubmitted in May 2009.  Dr. Jiang has made substantial teaching and mentoring contributions in undergraduate, graduate and medical education. As a preceptor MD/BSC810/820, she received a rating of 3.57 on a 4 point scale, which is two standard deviations above the average when compared to the college’s average of 3.17.  Currently, two Ph.D. students are finishing their Ph.D. dissertations using functional brain imaging measures in her laboratory. She also supervised two medical students in the summer.  In addition, she currently serves on six Ph.D. graduate committees (two as Co-chairs), She continues to work with previous Ph.D. and postdoctoral trainees on manuscripts.  She is also co-supervising five graduate or undergraduate research assistants and a postdoctoral fellow, from several colleges at UK. She was a guest lecturer or supervisor for courses in Cognitive Science, Medical Physics, Senior Design in Engineering, Psychology, and Rehabilitation.  She is an ad hoc reviewer for a dozen journals and the ‘Human Brain Mapping Organization”. She serves on the campus-wide Cognitive Science Steering Committee and the Mechanistic Studies Scientific Review Committee. She also helped to organize, and participated in, the “Aging Dementia Health Fair”, Cognitive Science Day, and Neuroscience Day.  She volunteered for medical students’ interviews, and other outreach programs such as the “Regional Science and Engineering Fair”, the  “Math, Science and Technology Center Program”, and Brain Awareness Week.  She also hosted visiting scholars from China and Germany, and helped in recruiting outside speakers for the MRI center and the Biomedical Engineering talk series.

Research Funding

Co-Investigator, “Individual Differences in sensation seeking status”, (Kelly), National Institute of Drug Abuse, P50 DA005312 to UK CDART center (Bardo), 2008-2013.

Co-Investigator, “Individual Differences in reward and inhibition”, National Institute of Drug Abuse, (Lynam), P50 DA005312 (Bardo), 2008-2013.

Co-Principal Investigator, “Alzheimer's disease detection via non-linear analysis of EEG”, Department of Energy, DE-AC05-OR22725 to Ork Ridge National Laboratory (UK site Smith), 6/2005-9/09.

Principal Investigator, "NeuroImaging of complex motion in young and old", National Institute of Aging (NIA), K01 AG00986 (Jiang), 9/2001-8/07.

Principal Investigator, "Brain imaging of visual memory for dynamic 3-D objects" Pilot grant, part of NIH P50 AG05144-21 to Alzheimer Disease Research Center (Markesbery), 5/2004-3/07.

Representative Publications

Jiang, Y, Ding, JH, Gold, BT, & Powell, D (2008). The hemispheric asymmetries in tracking occluded moving targets with the mind's eye: Simultaneous event-related fMRI and eye-movement recording, Brain Imaging and Behavior, special issue, in press.

Guo, CY, Lawson, A, Zhang, Q, & Jiang, Y (2008). Brain potentials of new and studied objects during working memory, Human Brain Mapping, 29 (4), 441-452 (Cover Illustration).

Jiang, Y, Boehler, CN, Nönnig, N, Düzel, E, Hopf, JM, Heinze, HJ, & Schoenfeld, MA (2008). Spatial-temporal analysis of binding 3D shape perception, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20 (4), 553-562.

Vagnini, V, Berry, D, Clark, J, & Jiang, Y (2008). New measures to detect malingered neurocognitive deficit: Applying reaction time and event-related potentials, Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 26:1-11[Epub ahead of print doi: 10.1080/13803390701754746].

Jiang, Y, Luo, YJ, & Parasuraman, R (2008). Neural mechanisms underlying age-related reduction in visual motion priming, Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, in press.

Lawson, AL, Guo, C, & Jiang, Y (2007). Age effects on brain activity during repetition priming of targets and distracters, Neuropsychologia, 45, 1223-1231.

Guo, CY, Lawson, A, & Jiang, Y (2007). Two distinct neural mechanisms of repetition priming, Neuroscience, 149, 747-759.

Jiang, Y., Vagnini, V., Clark, J., & Zhang, Q. (2007). Reduced sensitivity of affective mismatches in older adults. TheScientificWorldJOURNAL,7, 641-648, DOI 10.1100/tsw.2007.115.

Zhang, Q., Guo, C., Lawson, A., & Jiang, Y. (2006). Electrophysiological correlates of visual affective priming, Brain Research Bulletin, 71 316-323.

Caggiano, D., Jiang, Y., & Parasuraman, R. (2006). Aging and repetition priming for targets and distracters in a working memory task, Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 13, 552-573.

Jiang, Y., Luo, Y.J., & Parasuraman, R. (2002). Two-dimensional visual motion priming is reduced in older adults.  Neuropsychology,16 (2), 140-145.

Jiang, Y., Haxby, J.V., Martin, A., Ungerleider, L.G., & Parasuraman, R. (2000). Complementary neural mechanisms for tracking familiar items in human working memory, Science, 287, 643-646.

Jiang, Y., Luo, Y.J., & Parasuraman, R. (2002). Neural correlates for perceptual priming of visual motion.  Brain Research Bulletin, 57 (2), 211-219.

Jiang, Y., Greenwood, P., & Parasuraman, R. (1999). Age-related reduction in 3-D visual motion priming.  Psychology and Aging, 14 (4), 619-626.

Mark, L.S., Jiang, Y., King, S.S., & Paasche, J. (1999). The impact of visual exploration on judgments of whether a gap is crossable.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 25 (1), 287-295.

Jiang, Y., Pantle, A.J., & Mark, L.S. (1998). Visual inertia of rotating 3-D objects. Perception and Psychophysics, 60 (2), 275-286.

Research Facilities