Penghui Du ☕️

Penghui Du

MSc Neuro-X, EPFL · Visiting Graduate Student, Buckner Lab, Harvard

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

Hi! I’m Penghui, a master’s student in the Neuro-X program at EPFL, currently a visiting graduate student in the Buckner Lab at Harvard, supported by the EPFL/HMS Bertarelli Fellowship.

I am curious about how individual brain networks support cognitive functions like language, memory, and emotion; how disruptions in these networks lead to neurological and psychiatric disorders; with the ultimate goal of identifying biomarkers and neuromodulation targets to advance personalized brain healthcare.

News

  • Sep 2026: 🧠 iGENMap was accepted as a Late-Breaking Abstract at SfN 2026. See you in Washington, DC!
  • Aug 2026: 🎉 Our fPET-FDG metabolic connectivity paper is finally out in European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging!
  • Mar 2026: 📄 Our conference paper on tri-modal EEG-fPET-fMRI analysis is now online in the Asilomar 2025 proceedings.
  • Mar 2026: 🎤 Presented our metabolic connectivity work at the Molecular Connectivity Online Symposium.
  • Mar 2026: 🔬 Started as a Visiting Graduate Student in the Buckner Lab at Harvard, supported by the EPFL/HMS Bertarelli Fellowship. Excited for the year ahead!
  • Aug 2024: 📚 Began the MSc in Neuro-X at EPFL.
  • Jul 2024: 🎓 Graduated from SUSTech with a BSc in Intelligent Medical Engineering and the 2024 Distinguished Graduate Award!
  • Jul 2023: 🧲 Joined the CANDY Lab (Prof. Jingyuan Chen) at the Martinos Center, Harvard Medical School, as a visiting undergraduate student. Hooray!
  • Feb 2023: 🏫 Started an exchange semester in Neuroinformatics at the University of Zurich.

Research

iGENMap: Data-Efficient Precision Functional Mapping
Learning how individual functional eigenmodes correspond to cortical networks, so that individual network maps can be estimated from far less fMRI data than current state-of-the-art approaches require.
iGENMap: Data-Efficient Precision Functional Mapping
Precision Brain Mapping for Personalized TMS Targeting
Comparing empirical, group-level, and individualized strategies for choosing TMS targets, and assessing their relative benefits and practical trade-offs.
Precision Brain Mapping for Personalized TMS Targeting
Predicting Individual Brain Glucose Metabolism from MRI
A deep learning framework that predicts individual glucose metabolism from structural and functional MRI features, showing that metabolism can be partly inferred from MRI-based representations.
Predicting Individual Brain Glucose Metabolism from MRI
Cortical Organization of Metabolic Connectivity (fPET-FDG)
Characterizing the spatiotemporal organization of resting-state metabolic connectivity, revealing a robust superior–inferior cortical gradient driven by minute-scale metabolic dynamics.
Cortical Organization of Metabolic Connectivity (fPET-FDG)

Publications

Penghui Du, Sean E. Coursey, Ting Xu, Sharna Jamadar, Sara Nolin, Bin Wan, Hsiao-Ying Wey, Jonathan R. Polimeni, Julie C. Price, Quanying Liu, Jingyuan E. Chen (2026). Human Cerebral Cortex Organization Characterized by Functional PET-FDG “Metabolic Connectivity”. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging.

DOI

Penghui Du, Jingyuan E. Chen (2026). Data-Driven Methods in Simultaneous EEG-fPET-fMRI Opportunities and Challenges. Asilomar 2025.

DOI

Youzhi Qu, Chen Wei, Penghui Du, Wenxin Che, Chi Zhang, Wanli Ouyang, Yatao Bian, Feiyang Xu, Bin Hu, Kai Du, Haiyan Wu, Jia Liu, Quanying Liu (2024). Integration of cognitive tasks into artificial general intelligence test for large models. iScience.

DOI

Youzhi Qu, Penghui Du, Wenxin Che, Chen Wei, Chi Zhang, Wanli Ouyang, Yatao Bian, Feiyang Xu, Bin Hu, Kai Du, Haiyan Wu, Jia Liu, Quanying Liu (2023). Promoting interactions between cognitive science and large language models. The Innovation.

DOI

Youzhi Qu, Xinyao Jian, Wenxin Che, Penghui Du, Kai Fu, Quanying Liu (2022). Transfer learning to decode brain states reflecting the relationship between cognitive tasks. In International Workshop on Human Brain and Artificial Intelligence.

DOI

Talks and Posters

iGENMap: Individualized Generative Mapping of Cortical Networks Using Functional Eigenmodes
Late-Breaking Abstract accepted at SfN 2026.
Nov 18, 2026 Washington, DC
iGENMap: Individualized Generative Mapping of Cortical Networks Using Functional Eigenmodes
Human Cerebral Cortex Organization Characterized by Functional PET-FDG Metabolic Connectivity
Invited talk on the local and global topography of metabolic connectivity derived from fPET-FDG.
Mar 20, 2026 10:00 AM — 11:00 AM Online
Video
Human Cerebral Cortex Organization Characterized by Functional PET-FDG Metabolic Connectivity
Human Cerebral Cortex Organization Estimated by Functional PET-FDG Metabolic Connectivity
Poster #1496 on the cortical organization of fPET-FDG metabolic connectivity and how it differs from fMRI functional connectivity.
Jun 23, 2024 Seoul, South Korea
Poster
Human Cerebral Cortex Organization Estimated by Functional PET-FDG Metabolic Connectivity
The Organization of Human Cerebral Cortex Estimated by Functional PET-FDG: The Promise and Controversy of Metabolic Connectivity
Invited talk on the promise and the caveats of fPET-FDG “metabolic connectivity”.
Feb 23, 2024 3:00 PM — 4:00 PM Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Harvard Medical School
Slides
The Organization of Human Cerebral Cortex Estimated by Functional PET-FDG: The Promise and Controversy of Metabolic Connectivity

Experience

 
 
 
 
 
Harvard University
Visiting Graduate Student
Harvard University
March 2026 – February 2027 Cambridge, MA, USA
  • Buckner Lab, supervised by Prof. Randy Buckner.
  • Supported by the EPFL/HMS Bertarelli Fellowship.
 
 
 
 
 
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
Summer Intern
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
June 2025 – August 2025 Leipzig, Germany
 
 
 
 
 
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Master Student in Neuro-X
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
September 2024 – February 2027 Ecublens, Switzerland
  • GPA: 5.40 / 6
  • EPFL/HMS Bertarelli Fellowship
 
 
 
 
 
Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Harvard Medical School
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Harvard Medical School
July 2023 – December 2023 Charlestown, MA, USA
 
 
 
 
 
University of Zurich
Visiting Student in Neuroinformatics
University of Zurich
February 2023 – June 2023 Zurich, Switzerland
  • Exchange semester in the Neuroinformatics program, jointly run by the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich.
 
 
 
 
 
Southern University of Science and Technology
BSc in Intelligent Medical Engineering
Southern University of Science and Technology
August 2020 – June 2024 Shenzhen, China
  • Academic supervisor: Dr. Quanying Liu.
  • GPA: 3.84 / 4 (92.79), ranked 2 / 22.
  • 2024 Distinguished Graduate Award; BME “Fortunatt” Scholarship (2022); SUSTech Outstanding Student Scholarship (2022).

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