• Mental Impairment
• Networks
• Psychopathology
• Decision-making
• Memory and Learning
• Clinical Neuroscience

Iuliia acquired broad biological knowledge during her undergraduate studies. She worked as a scientist at Thermo Fisher Scientific R&D. During her studies she developed an interest in brain sciences studying the mechanisms underlying brain function, including emotion, thinking, learning, decision-making, and perception. She got training in a neurophysiology lab investigating neuronal network properties in visual processing. She hopes to find new biomedical applications and bridge the knowledge gaps in our understanding of psychiatric diseases in the context of the different cognitive domains using the strength of multiple tools of cognitive science. She is eager to explore how networks modulate cognition and what factors cause their disruption.

• Clinical neuroscience
• sleep disorder
• anxiety and depression
• sleeping behaviour and memory
• neurocognitive disorder
• sleep cycle

Studying psychology as an undergraduate and having a particular interest in the relationship between sleeping behaviours and memory, I gradually became interested in neurocognitive science. I aim to acquire a higher level of understanding in neurocognitive science at KAIST based on computational methodology, primarily focusing on the relations between brain-damaged disorders, sleeping disorders and treatments. My ultimate target for my research is building an evidence base to contribute to treatment development for brain diseases related to sleeping issues. Specifically, I hope to research topics of understanding how sleeping disorders can cause and contribute to various risks and other brain damage and how the human sleep cycle (circadian rhythm) can affect and be affected by brain damage and neurocognitive disorders.

• Brain-inspired AI
• Decision neuroscience
• Computational neuroscience
• Reinforcement learning
• Neuroeconomics

The human brain is a fascinating subject for research. Among all the various topics, however, it is understanding of brain’s intricate functions and its reflection in our brain when a decision is made that are especially thrilling for me. I chose the Brain Cognitive Science program at KAIST because it does not only offer the opportunities to conduct studies on these phenomena but also provide avenues for applying insights gained from such works on our brain to other research topics, such as brain-inspired artificial intelligence. Specifically, I find emulating the brain’s learning strategy to overcome the trade-off issues associated with AI’s learning systems to be particularly captivating and exciting. Ultimately, I aspire to be an interdisciplinary scholar whose work does not only contribute to what we know about human brain and the mind but also to the application of this knowledge in fields such as AI.

• motivation
• cognition
• social behavior
• neural circuit
• disease modeling
• neurofeedback

Gaeun Ryu has been fascinated by self-understanding through interaction with the world and the brain as a mediator. To explore this, she has studied brain&cognitive sciences and life science in her undergraduate years, and is currently an MS student in prof. Jeong Jaeseung’s Lab, the Decision brain dynamics lab. Her research interest is scientific and empirical proof of human motivation and behavior. In particular, she focuses on identifying neural circuits involved in social behavior and extending them to related brain diseases to understand their neuropathological mechanisms. Furthermore, she aims to apply modeling to disease diagnosis and treatment. She aspires to understand the brain and humans through multidisciplinary research, and to contribute to multiple disciplines based on her findings.

• Visual prosthetics
• multi-sensory perception
• sensory-disability

I majored in Chemistry during my undergraduate years at Korea University. While studying science, I realized that technological advancements aimed at creating a more convenient world can inadvertently widen the gap among people. Therefore, it is necessary to develop technology for a convenient world, but I thought, "Someone should also develop technology for a world that is not-uncomfortable" With this in mind, I became determined to contribute to narrowing the gap by developing technologies to overcome sensory disabilities. I have a particular interest in various sensory impairments, including blindness. Starting with learning about visual prosthetics in Professor Seung Woo Lee's laboratory, I aspire to expand my knowledge to encompass other sensory disabilities, with the ultimate goal of sharing our daily lives and experiences.

Majoring in Psychology at McGill University, Jae Bin had the opportunity to create intervention programs for young adults that aimed to improve their mental health and also handle real-life stressors. His current research interest includes resilience and suicide and eventually, Jae Bin hopes to study and develop empirically-supported interventions programs that can help improve the resilience of individuals.

• neural circuit
• consciousness
• ion channel

Studying the brain and how humans think is a major question to all humans. Acknowledging the importance of understanding both biology and engineering to truly understand the brain, I have studied medical biology and engineering in my undergraduate years. Studying ion channels as a protein and the circuit they constitute in the brain, have led me to explore deeper into the consciousness of the mind. My interests include how humans think and process thought, exploring them with computational science and big data, including the biological mechanisms behind it. Moreover, hope to understand the human itself better through interdisciplinary studies including human history, philosophy, and psychology.

• personalized diagnosis
• disease in dish
• developmental disorder
• degenerative disease

Eunjin majored in psychology from Korea University. During that time, she worked as lab assistant in Biopsychology lab, involving in mouse experiment of sleep disorder. Also she assisted the research about autism spectrum disorder in Clinical Neurodevelopmental Sciences(CNdS) lab. Currently, she interested in personalized diagnosis and treatment system on mental disorder.

• neuroscience
• cognition

She has dreamed on and on of becoming a person who could contribute to the development of society by exploring the brain, the unknown area. She majored in biological science and psychology at Chonnam National University and was able to study the brain from various perspectives. She also decided to grow into a scientist with an interdisciplinary approach while participating in the study of brain disease, brain engineering, and cognitive science through undergraduate research and internships. Recently, she is interested in how learning and memory occur in the brain and she will always do research in the spirit of trying to learn new things through a master's course in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at KAIST.

• iPSC
• AI
• Neurodegenerative diseases
• Perosnalised medicine

The brain, both mysterious and wondrous, presents inevitable impairments that we must conquer. Seung Ju's research focuses on enabling patient-specific, targeted treatments by identifying the subtypes of brain diseases.

• Brain-inspired AI
• Model-based fMRI
• Computational neuroscience
• Memory

I majored in Chemistry and Brain Cognitive Sciences at Korea University. The main reason I decided to study the brain was because of a very vague idea: "Can we model the brain artificially?". This idea got me interested in neuroscience. In particular, I want to develop a model of artificial intelligence that has the same valuation and reward system as humans and has human-like behavior. To realize this, it is also essential to discover what the brain does through the process of proposing an appropriate model and comparing it to the brain. By approaching both the brain and artificial intelligence, I hope to understand the mechanisms of how the brain works and use them to conquer the things that current artificial intelligence cannot.

• Mental Disorders
• Major Depressive Disorder
• Schizophrenia

As I was usually interested in war studies, I became interested in the brain and cognitive science after seeing soldiers suffering from mental disorders such as major depressive disorders and PTSD. I would like to build up various knowledge of the brain and cognition during undergraduate course. With that knowledge, I will study changes in neural circuits in the process of onset and recovery of mental disorders in people exposed to great stress. My goal is to propose a better treatment for mental disorders.

• Decision neuroscience
• Computational neuroscience
• Reinforcement learning
• Memory

Nayeong acquired her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Electrical Electronic Engineering in Yonsei University. Based on her interest in human cognitive function, she decided to study human intelligence with the aid of brain-inspired AI models. Now, she is an MS student in prof. Sangwan Lee’s Brain and Machine Intelligence Lab. Her research interest is in hippocampal memory-based inference guided by abstract knowledge.

• Memory
• Visual Perception
• Neuronal connectivity
• Neurotransmitter
• Biological approach
• Genetic analysis

Hoyong aims to understand brain network influencing cognition and decision at the level of neuronal connectivity and neurotransmission. Especially, he is interested in Memory and Visual perception. In those topics, his focus of study is which neurons or neurotransmitters have an influence on and how they connected and affect cognitive process. While at the department of brain and cognitive science, Hoyong hopes to deepen his understanding of how neuronal interaction makes high-level brain functions.