Goal of our Lab 

The higher cognitive functions of the brain, such as consciousness, language and empathy, are the basis of human social behavior. The research on the evolutionary origin and neural mechanism of higher cognitive function has always been a difficult and hot issue in the field of neuroscience. Non-human primates are close to human beings in evolution and have similar brain structure and functions, so they have unique advantages in the study of higher cognitive functions. The goal of our lab is to establish non-human primate models for studying higher cognitive functions and their underlying neural mechanisms.  

Models we have established 

1.Rhesus monkey model for studying self-consciousness 

Self-consciousness is one of the most important higher cognitive functions of human beings. Mirror self-recognition has been thought to be an indication of self-consciousness. Most children recognize themselves in the mirror by 2 years of age. Evolutionarily, it has been accepted that only humans and a few great apes, such as chimpanzees, can recognize themselves. Therefore, little is known about the evolutionary origin of a series of human higher cognitive behaviors represented by self-awareness. We first demonstrate that rhesus monkeys exhibit mirror self-recognition behaviors after training, rewriting the long-lasting view that only human and several great apes has the ability of mirror self-recognition (Current Biology，2015；PNAS，2017). These works cause a lot of attention and interest in the scientific community, and has been commented to close a prior gap in the evolutionary continuity of animal cognition and open new frontiers for exploring the neurobiological basis of self- consciousness. 

2.Marmoset model for studying pro-social behavior 

Marmoset monkeys are the smallest non-human primates, and easy to be operated and used in the behavioral and physiological studies. They have rich vocal communication, and are recently considered to be an ideal model for studying the neural basis of "language". Furthermore, marmosets have a monogamous social structure similar to that of human family, in which both parents raise their offspring, therefore may be an ideal model for studying parenting and altruistic behaviors. We first establish a novel rescue paradigm for studying altruistic behaviors in marmosets, and show that marmosets have family structure-dependent altruistic behaviors similar to those of humans (Current Biology，2020). 

Questions we are interested in 

Self-Cognition: 

* Neural mechanism of mirror self-recognition in rhesus monkeys 

* Comparative study of self-consciousness formation in rhesus monkeys and human children 

* Building a theoretic computational model on the formation of self-consciousness 

Social-Cognition: 

* Neural mechanism of empathy and pro-social behavior in marmosets 

* Neural mechanism of vocal development in marmosets 

* How social experiences shape the brain activity in marmosets