Fang Zepeng is a Tenure-track Associate Professor and Principle Investigator at the School of Psychology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His research primarily focuses on primates (humans and macaques), integrating psychophysics, human intracranial electroencephalography, macaque electrophysiology in vivo and neural modulation techniques, to investigate the neural mechanisms of consciousness. His work has been published in Science, eLife, and NeuroImage, and was selected as one of China's major advances in neuroscience (2025).

Website: https://psychology.sjtu.edu.cn/tsml/588.html

Neural mechanisms of consciousness. By integrating psychophysics, electrophysiology, neural modulation, and computational modeling, we investigate the psychological characteristics and neural underpinnings of different aspects of consciousness—such as sensory awareness, emotional awareness, and self-awareness. We also aim to apply these findings to the diagnosis and treatment of clinical disorders of consciousness (e.g., vegetative states), schizophrenia, and other conditions involving pathological changes of consciousness, as well as to assess the level of consciousness in artificial intelligence systems.

2023 - 2026, Beijing Normal University, Psychology, Ph.D

2020 - 2023, Beijing Normal University, Psychology, Master

2012 - 2016, Civil Aviation University of China, Electronic Information Engineering, Bachelor

2026 - present, Tenure-track Associate Professor, School of Psychology at Shanghai Jiao Tong University

[1] Fang Z.#, Dang Y. #, Ping A.a.#, Wang C., Zhao Q., Zhao H. *, Li X. *, Zhang M*. Human high-order thalamic nuclei gate conscious perception through the thalamofrontal loop [J]. Science, 2025,388(6742): eadr3675.

[2] Fang Z., Dang Y., Ling Z., Han Y., Zhao H. *, Xu X. *, Zhang M*. The involvement of the human prefrontal cortex in the emergence of visual awareness [J]. Elife, 2024,12.

[3] Fang Z. #, Dang Y.#, Li X., Zhao Q., Zhang M*., Zhao H*. Intracranial neural representation of phenomenal and access consciousness in the human brain [J]. NeuroImage, 2024,297: 120699.

1.  Principal Investigator, National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Youth Student Basic Research Project (Doctoral Students), 324B2031, Neural Mechanism of Visual Consciousness Based on Intracranial Neural Modulation and Electrophysiological Recording, January 2025 - December 2026, 300,000 RMB, ongoing;

2. Participant, Science and Technology Innovation 2030 - Major Project on Brain Science and Brain-like Research, 2021ZD0204300, Neural Mechanisms, Detection and Non-invasive Intervention of Consciousness and Disorders of Consciousness, January 2021 - December 2026, 40 million RMB, ongoing.