Born in 1966, Hu Xintian is Professor and Tutor Supervisor of Doctors and heads the laboratory of sensorimotor integration. After graduating from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1988, he continued his education by enrolling in a graduate program in the Kunming Institute of Zoology. Two and half years later, under the direction of Professor Jingxia Cai, he received his master’s degree in neuroscience and became a junior faculty member at the institute. In 1994, he went to Princeton University in the United States to pursue a PhD. Supervised by Dr. Charles Gross, who discovered the world famous “face cell” and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, Xintian Hu studied the spatial information processing function in the prefrontal cortex of the monkey. Some of his data were published in Science magazine. After receiving his PhD degree in 2000, he took a postdoctoral position at the Baylor College of Medicine to study the neuro-control mechanisms of movement under the direction of David Sparks, a renowned neuroscientist in the study of eye movement control. In 2005, he was awarded the One Hundred Persons Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and took his current position at the Kunming Institute of Zoology as a full professor. He currently continues his research on the brain mechanisms of sensory and movement information processing and their integration.

If the brain is viewed as an information processing system, sensory information from different channels is its input, and the different movements that we make daily are its outputs. As a model for studying the outputs, the eye movement control system of the monkey has several advantages: 1) the load is fixed because the weight of the eye ball is more or less constant through time; 2) the eye movements are relatively simple, since its movements can be approximated as three-dimensional rotations around a fixed point in the space and, therefore, can be measured accurately; and 3) the system consists of structures located in both the brain stem and the cortex, which allows us to study both low and high brain functions. All of these characteristics make the eye movement control system an ideal model to study the mechanisms of brain output. In our lab, we use this system to study the information processing mechanisms and plasticity of the brain. Furthermore, due to the fact that many high functions, such as attention and decision making, are involved in eye movement control, we also study mental disorders such as schizophrenia and depression in the brain by observing the abnormity of eye movements.

　　1.   Li H, Lei X, Yan T, Li H, Huang B, Li L, Xu L, Liu L, Chen N, Lü L, Ma Y, Xu L, Li J, Wang Z, Zhang B, Hu X. The temporary and accumulated effects of transcranial direct current stimulation for the treatment of advanced Parkinson's disease monkeys. Sci Rep. 2015 Jul 29;5:12178. doi: 10.1038/srep12178 　　  

　　2.   Qin D, Chu X, Feng X, Li Z, Yang S, Lü L, Yang Q, Pan L, Yin Y, Li J, Xu L, Chen L, Hu X. The first observation of seasonal affective disorder symptoms in rhesus macaque. Behav Brain Res. 2015 Jul 8. pii: S0166-4328(15)30082-6. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2015.07.005. [Epub ahead of print] 　　  

　　3.   He-Qun Liu,    Jing-Kuan Wei,      Bo Li,   Ming-Shan Wang, Rui-Qi Wu,   Joshua D. Rizak,  Li Zhong, Lu Wang,     Fu-Qiang Xu,  Yong-Yi Shen,     Xin-Tian Hu & Ya-Ping Zhang. Divergence of dim-light vision among bats (order: Chiroptera) as estimated by molecular and electrophysiological methods. Sci Rep. 2015 Jun 23;5:11531. doi: 10.1038/srep11531. 　　  

　　4.   Qin D, Rizak J, Chu X, Li Z, Yang S, Lü L, Yang L, Yang Q, Yang B, Pan L, Yin Y, Chen L, Feng X, Hu X. A spontaneous depressive pattern in adult female rhesus macaques. Sci Rep. 2015 Jun 10;5:11267. doi: 10.1038/srep11267. 　　  

　　5.   Lei X, Huang B, Li H, Jiang H, Hu X, Zhang B., Drift in centrality of different brain regions in an anatomical neural network with Parkinson’s disease: A view from complex network analysis. Neuroscience. 2015 Jul 23;299:107-24. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2015.04.056. Epub 2015 Apr 30. 　　  

　　6.   Li H, Lei X, Huang B, Rizak JD, Yang L, Yang S, Wu J, Lü L, Wang J, Yan T, Li H, Wang Z, Hu Y, Le W, Deng X, Li J, Xu L, Zhang B, Hu X. A quantitative approach to developing Parkinsonian monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) with intracerebroventricular 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium injections. J Neurosci Methods. 2015 May 20. pii: S0165-0270(15)00181-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2015.05.008. [Epub ahead of print] 　　  

　　7.   Wei P, Liu N, Zhang Z, Liu X, Tang Y, He X, Wu B, Zhou Z, Liu Y, Li J, Zhang Y, Zhou X, Xu L, Chen L, Bi G, Hu X, Xu F, Wang L. Processing of visually evoked innate fear by a non-canonical thalamic pathway. Nat Commun. 2015 Apr 9;6:6756. doi: 10.1038/ncomms7756. 　　  

　　8.   Dongdong Qin; Joshua Rizak; Xiaoli Feng; Shangchuan Yang; Lichuan Yang; Xiaona Fan; Longbao Lü; Lin Chen; Xintian Hu. Cortisol responses to chronic stress in adult macaques: moderation by a polymorphism in the serotonin transporter gene. Behavioural Brain Research. 2014 Oct 13;278C:280-285. 　　  

　　9.   Rizak, JD., Ma, YY., Hu, XT. Is formaldehyde the missing link in AD pathology? The differential aggregation of Amyloid-beta with APOE isoforms in vitro. Current Alzheimer Research. Curr Alzheimer Res. 2014;11(5):461-8. 　　  

　　10.  Meifeng Yang, Jing Lu, Junye Miao, Joshua Rizak, Jianzhen Yang, Rongwei Zhai, Jun Zhou, Jiagui Qu, Jianhong Wang, Yuanye Ma, Xintian Hu *, Rongqiao He *. 2004, Alzheimer’s Disease and Methanol Toxicity (Pt.1): Chronic methanol feeding led to memory impairments, tau hyperphosphorylation in mice. Journal of Alzheimer’s disease. J Alzheimers Dis. 2014;41(4):1117-29 　　  

　　11. Meifeng Yang, Junye Miao, Joshua Rizak, Rongwei Zhai, Zhengbo Wang, Tanzeel Huma Anwar, Ting Li, Na Zheng, Shihao Wu, Yingwei Zheng, Xiaona Fan, Jianzhen Yang, Jianhong Wang, Yuanye Ma, Longbao Lü, Rongqiao He *, Xintian Hu *.  Alzheimer’s Disease and Methanol Toxicity (Pt.2): Lessons from four rhesus macaques (macaca mulatta) chronically fed methanol. J Alzheimers Dis. 2014;41(4):1131-47 　　  

　　12.  Yan T, Rizak JD, Yang S, Li H, Huang B, Ma Y, Hu X. Acute morphine treatments alleviate tremor in 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine-treated monkeys. PLoS One. 2014 Feb 10;9(2):e88404. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0088404. eCollection 2014.   

　　13. Wu J, Wang W, Rizak JD, Wang Z, Wang J, Feng X, Dong J, Li L, Liu L, Xu L, Yang S, Hu X. A new method for piercing the tentorium cerebelli for implanting fragile electrodes into the brain stem in the rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta). J Neurophysiol. 2014 Mar;111(5):1027-32. 　　  

　　14. Hu YZ, Jiang HH, Liu CR, Wang JH, Yu CY, Carlson S, Saarinen VM, Rizak J, Tian XG, Tan H, Chen ZY, Ma YY, Hu XT. What interests them in the pictures? -- The difference in eye tracking between rhesus monkeys and humans. Neuroscience Bulletin, 2013   

　　15. Xintian Hu, Bing Su, and Weizhi Ji*，Nonhuman Primates: Important Animal Models for Regenerative Medicine，Science Supplement J. (April 27, 2012):_PF032712-DT 　　  

　　16.  Ma Y, Hu X, Wilson FA. The egocentric spatial reference frame used in dorsal-lateral prefrontal working memory in primates. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2012 Jan;36(1):26-33.【引用9次】 　　  

　　17.  Feng XL, Wang LN, Yang SC, Qin DD, Wang JH, Li CL, Lv LB, Ma YY, Hu XT. Maternal separation produces lasting changes in cortisol and behavior in rhesus monkeys. PNAS, 2011, 23; 108(34): 14312-7. 【引用28次】 　　  

　　18.  Wu J, Wang WC, Li L, Liu L, Wang GM, Tan HG, Jiang HH, Wang JH, Ma YY, Hu XT. A new MRI approach for accurately implanting microelectrodes into deep brain structures of the rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta). Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 2010, 193: 203–209.【引用6次】 　　  

　　19.  Gu C, Li P, Hu B, Ouyang X, Fu J, Gao J, Song Z, Han L, Ma Y, Tian S, Hu X. Chronic Morphine Selectively Impairs Cued Fear Extinction in Rats: Implications for Anxiety Disorders Associated with Opiate Use. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2008, 33:666-673.  　  

　　20.  Hu X*, Jiang H, Gu C, Li C, Sparks DL*. Reliability of oculomotor command signals carried by individual neurons. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007, May 8;104(19):8137-42.  　　  

　　21.  Sparks DL, Hu X. Saccade initiation and the reliability of motor signals involved in the generation of saccadic eye movements. Novartis Found Symp. 2006;270:75-88; discussion 88-91, 108-13. 　　  

　　22.  Graziano MS, Alisharan SE, Hu X, Gross CG. The clothing effect: tactile neurons in the precentral gyrus do not respond to the touch of the familiar primate chair.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002 Sep 3;99(18):11930-3.. 　　  

　　23.  Graziano, M. S. A., X. T. Hu & C. G. Gross. 1997 CODING THE LOCATION OF OBJECTS IN THE DARK. Science. 277:239-242.