Xing Chen, PhD

  • Assistant Professor, Ophthalmology

Phone

4123109078

E-mail

x.chen@pitt.edu

Personal Website

http://ophthalmology.pitt.edu/people/xing-chen-phd

Education & Training

BA, 2008
PhD, 2014

Campus Address

709 New Texas Rd
Pittsburgh PA 15239

One-Line Research Description

The Chen lab develops high-channel-count, chronically implantable devices to record from and stimulate the brain.

We harness cutting-edge developments in electrode fabrication and microelectronics to improve probe durability and biocompatibility, generating fundamental neuroscientific knowledge and translating results from the lab to the clinic.  

Our applications include the restoration of life-enhancing vision in the blind. Blindness affects 40 million people worldwide, with a wide variety of causes, including injury to or degeneration of the retina and optic nerve. Brain implants interface directly with visual regions in the brain, bypassing the retina and optic nerve to produce artificially generated percepts without input from the eye.  

We use devices with >1000 channels to interface with large areas of the visual cortex, delivering tiny electrical currents to elicit the perception of dots of light (known as ‘phosphenes’). We deliver stimulation across multiple electrodes simultaneously, inducing percepts composed of multiple phosphenes, and causing our subjects to see movement, and simple shapes such as letters.  

Representative Publications

Chen X, Wang F, Fernandez E, and Roelfsema P. Shape perception via a high-channel-count neuroprosthesis in monkey visual cortex. Science 2020, 370, 1191-1196.

Fernández E, Alfaro A, Soto C, Gonzalez-Lopez P, Lozano A, Peña S, Grima MD, Rodil A, Gómez B, Chen X, Roelfsema PR, Rolston JD, Davis T, Normann RA. Visual percepts evoked with an intracortical 96-channel microelectrode array inserted in human occipital cortex. Journal of Clinical Investigation 2021; 131(23):e151331.  

van Velthoven EAM, Bredenoord AL, Haselager D, Broekman M, Chen X, Roelfsema PR, Jongsma KR. Ethical implications of visual neuroprostheses – a systematic review. Journal of Neural Engineering 2022; 19:026055.  

Chen X, Possel J, Wacongne C, Klink P, Roelfsema P. 3D printing and modelling of customized implants and surgical guides for non-human primates. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 2017, 286, 38-55.  

Chen X*, Morales-Gregorio A*, Sridhar S, Sprenger J, van Albada SJ, Grün S, Roelfsema PR. 1024-channel electrophysiological recordings in macaque V1 and V4 during resting state. Scientific Data 2022, 9(77).  

Klink PC, Chen X, Vanduffel W & Roelfsema PR. Population receptive fields in non-human primates from whole-brain fMRI and large-scale neurophysiology in visual cortex. eLife 2021;10:e67304.  

Sanayei M*, Chen X*, Chicharro D, Distler C, Panzeri S, Thiele A. Perceptual learning of fine contrast discrimination changes neuronal tuning and population coding in macaque V4. Nature Communications 2018, 9, 4238.  

Chen X, Sanayei M, Thiele A. Stimulus roving and flankers affect perceptual learning of contrast discrimination in macaca mulatta. PLoS ONE 2014, 9(10): e109604.  

Chen X, Sanayei M, Thiele A. Perceptual learning of contrast discrimination in macaca mulatta. Journal of Vision 2013, 13(13), 22.  

Chen X, Hoffmann KP, Albright TD, Thiele A. Effect of feature-selective attention on neuronal responses in macaque area MT. Journal of Neurophysiology 2012, 107(5), 1530-1543.