takamitsuwatanabelab
Research on anything interesting @ WPI-IRCN, UTokyo
Research on anything interesting @ WPI-IRCN, UTokyo
We aim to understand the neurobiological mechanisms behind various types of human/artificial intelligence as neural dynamics on a complex network.
Our research target includes both humans with/without neuropsychiatric conditions and artificial intelligence. Our methodological approach varies from human behavioural experiments using fMRI, EEG, TMS, TUS and motion capture devices to numerical and data-science-like manners.
Sorry, but the application for FY2026 PhD course was closed. If you are interested in one starting from FY2027 (April 2027), please contact me before the application. The PhD course application and selection will proceed in accordance with those for UTokyo Graduate School of Medicine.
We are open to talented post-docs with fellowships, like JSPS Research fellowship for young scientists! Please contact me (Watanabe) if you're thinking about our lab as the host for such fellowships.
Aug 2025 [Talk/Poster] Watanabe & Dr Murai present their research in UTokyo IRCN Symposium @ Harvard on 28th of August. [Link]
Aug 2025 [People] Dr Murai was promoted to Project Assistant Professor.
July 2025 [Poster] Dr Murai presented his latest study in Japan Neuroscience Meeting at Niigata.
July 2025 [People] Dr Agnes Gao joined our lab!
June 2025 [Paper] Our latest paper is out in Nature Neuroscience. In collaboration with Prof Yamasue at Hamamatsu Medical University, we have demonstrated dynamic brain-behaviour causality in autism in humans. A closed-loop noninvasive neural stimulation could enhance the flexibility of the whole-brain neural dynamics, which led to changes in both social and non-social autistic behaviours. [Link] [Press Release] [Press Release (Jpn)]
May 2025 [Paper] Our new paper is out in Advanced Science. In collaboration with Prof Aihara, Nakajima, Inoue and Kuniyoshi, we revealed similarity in the internal information processing style between LLMs—like GPT and Llama—and human brains with receptive aphasia. [Link] [Press Release] [Press Release (Jpn)]
May 2025 [Paper] Our new review paper on energy landscape analysis has been published at PLOS Complex Systems. [Link]
April 2025 [People] Dr Murai has been awarded a prestigious JSPS post-doc fellowship! Now his title is JSPS Research Fellow.
Dec 2024 [Poster] [Talk] Dr Murai and Watanabe will join and make presentations in IRCN-CNR-Scuola Normale Symposium in Pisa, Italy [Press release (Jpn)].
Dec 2024 [People] Professor Sanes (Brown Univ) has come back and will stay at the IRCN until the mid December.
Nov 2024 [Talk] Watanabe visited a lab of Dr Bahador Bahrami in LMU at Munich, Germany. Thank you, Bahador!
Oct 2024 [Talk] Watanabe made an oral presentation at SfN annual meeting at Chicago, US.
July 2024 [Paper] A new paper—led by Dr Murai with the great help of Professor Sanes (Brown Univ) and Dr Mano (NCNP in Japan)—has been out in Brain Communications. This resting-state fMRI study found that non-memory symptoms of Alzheimer's disease are attributable to the unstable activity of the default mode network, which is induced by the disturbance of the left parietal neural activity and anatomical atrophy. [link]. [Press release (Jpn)] [Press release (Eng)].
June 2024 [Paper] A new paper has been published in the European Journal of Neuroscience. This paper shows the reliability of energy landscape analysis. [link].
May 2024. [People] Prof Sanes (Brown Univ) has come back!
Mar 2024. [Paper] A new paper led by Dr Islam and Prof Masuda in Buffalo University has been out in BMC Neurosci. This paper shows that energy landscape analysis for human fMRI data can survive test-retest examination. [link]
Nov 2023. [Poster] Dr Murai will present his latest work on the intrinsic neural timescale at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) in Washington DC in the US.
Sep 2023. [Talk] Watanabe talked about brain state dynamics seen in CDKL5 disorder at CDKL5 Asia in Tokyo, Japan.
Aug 2023. [People] Prof Sanes has finished his sabbatical here. Thank you for coming and joining our lab!!
Aug 2023. [Talk] Drs Murai and Watanabe talked at the annual meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society in Miyagi, Japan.
Aug 2023. [Preprint] A new preprint has been out on comparisons of the models to infer brain states from resting-state fMRI data. [link]
July 2023. [Paper] A new paper, which was led by Mr Daichi Watanabe (UC Berkeley), has been now out in eNeuro: ASD+ADHD comorbid condition is not a simple overlap of autism and ADHD. [link][Press release]
June 2023. [Preprint] A new preprint has been out in medRxiv. We reported that the left angular gyrus appears to be a key brain region whose neural atrophy and resultant unstable neural activity disturb the activity of default mode network and lead to some symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. [link]
June 2023. [People] Ms Horikoshi has joined our team as a research assistant!
May 2023. [Preprint] A new preprint on the reliability of energy landscape analysis was now out as a preprint in arXiv. This work was done through collaboration with Masuda lab at SUNY Baffalo [arXiv].
March 2023. [Paper] A new review paper by Watanabe was out in Folia pharmacologica Japonica.
Jan 2023. [Paper] Congratulations! Dr Murai's paper has been published in J Comp Physiology [link]
Jan 2023. [Talk] Watanabe talked on the control of global brain state dynamics at IRCN-iPlasticity International Symposium.
Watanabe, T. & Yamasue, H.
Noninvasive reduction of neural rigidity alters autistic behaviors in humans.
Nature Neurosci. 1–13 (2025) doi:10.1038/s41593-025-01961-y. [Link] [Press Release] [Press Release (Jpn)]
Watanabe, T., Inoue, K., Kuniyoshi, Y., Nakajima, K. & Aihara, K.
Comparison of Large Language Model with Aphasia.
Advanced Science (2025) doi:10.1002/advs.202414016. [Link] [Press Release] [Press Release (Jpn)]
Watanabe, D. Watanabe, T.
Distinct Frontoparietal Brain Dynamics Underlying the Co-Occurrence of Autism and ADHD.
eNeuro. 2023. doi:10.1523/eneuro.0146-23.2023. [Press Release] [Press Release (Jpn)]
Watanabe T
Causal roles of prefrontal cortex during spontaneous perceptual switching are determined by brain state dynamics.
eLife. 2021. Full text. eLife Digest. Press release (E). Press release (J).
Watanabe T, Lawson P R, Walldén YSE, Rees G.
A neuroanatomical substrate linking perceptual stability to cognitive rigidity in autism.
J Neurosci. 2019, DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2831-18.2019. Full text Press release (E) Press release (J)
Watanabe T, Rees G, Masuda N.
Atypical intrinsic neural timescale in autism.
eLife. 2019;8:e42256. Full text RIKEN press release Insight article
Watanabe T, Rees G.
Brain network dynamics in high-functioning individuals with autism.
Nature Communications. 2017. 8, 16048–14. Full Text | Press release (J)
Watanabe T, Kuroda M, Kuwabara H, Aoki Y, Iwashiro N, Natsubori T, Takao H, Nippashi Y, Kawakubo Y, Kunimatsu A, Kasai K, Yamasue H.
Clinical and neural effects of six-week administration of oxytocin on core symptoms of autism.
Brain. 2015. 138(Pt 11):3400-3412. Full Text | Video
Watanabe T, Masuda N, Megumi F, Kanai R, Rees G.
Energy landscape and dynamics of brain activity during human bistable perception.
Nature Communications. 2014. 5, 4765. Full Text
Watanabe T, Takezawa M, Nakawake Y, Kunimatsu A, Yamasue H, Nakamura M, Miyashita Y, Masuda N.
Two distinct neural mechanisms underlying indirect reciprocity.
Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2014. 111:3990–3995. Full Text
Watanabe T, Abe O, Kuwabara H, Yahata N, Takano Y, Iwashiro N, Natsubori T, Aoki Y, Takao H, Kawakubo Y, Kamio Y, Kato N, Miyashita Y, Kasai K, Yamasue H.
Mitigation of Sociocommunicational Deficits of Autism Through Oxytocin-Induced Recovery of Medial Prefrontal Activity: A Randomized Trial.
JAMA Psychiatry. 2014. 71:166–175. Full Text | PDF
Watanabe T, Hirose S, Wada H, Imai Y, Machida T, Shirouzu I, Konishi S, Miyashita Y, Masuda N.
A pairwise maximum entropy model accurately describes resting-state human brain networks.
Nature Communications. 2013. 4: 1370. Full Text
KAKEN, JSPS, European Council, Wellcome Trust, Neurocreative Lab, Fukuhara Foundation, Senshin-iyaku Foundation, Yamaha sports foundation, AMED, US National Academy of Medicine, Asteralls Foundation, UTokyo, WPI, JST, NEDO