Dr. Petrina Yau Pok LAU
Research Assistant Professor

• Visiting Research Fellow at the University College London
• Researcher at the International Brain Lab

• Biological mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric disorders
• Circuit-based neuropathological states transition
• Multi-modal data translation
• Cross-species comparison
• Computation psychiatry

Postdoctoral Fellowship and PhD positions are available. Quantitative and experimental doctoral students and graduates with relevant experience in computational and/or systems neuroscience are encouraged to contact me regarding a postdoctoral fellowship at GCNI, CUHK.

Interested and eligible PhD applicants are welcome to apply for the HK PhD Fellowship Scheme (https://cerg1.ugc.edu.hk/hkpfs/index.html), CUHK Vice-Chancellor’s PhD Scholarship Scheme, and Postgraduate Studentships (https://www.gs.cuhk.edu.hk/admissions/scholarships-fees/scholarships). Deadline is 1st December, 2025.

Research assistant positions and internships are also available.

For further enquiries, please email me: yaupoklau(at)cuhk.edu.hk

We study the biological mechanisms behind heritable psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Our goal is to find new ways to understand, classify, manage, and potentially treat these brain disorders.
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These disorders have strong heritable causes but are characterized as pathologies of the mind. Traditional research methods struggle to study the biological mechanisms behind subjective clinical measures. Our research uses neurological profiles such as electrical measurements of brain networks to objectively classify perception and cognitive processes underlying neuropathologies. We combine computational models with observations to analyze pathological dynamics in humans and mice. Our recent work has detailed dendritic signal dynamics during visual perception and prior-dependent decision-making processes and established single-cell resolution circuit pathologies in ASD mouse models across the brain.
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To bridge understanding from genetics, molecular pathways, cellular, metabolic, and immunologic factors with clinical observations using multimodal and cross-species approaches we will combine high-density biological measurements, causal manipulation, and computational modeling in our research approach. Overall we aim to develop clinically oriented neuropsychiatric understanding that would aid the development of diagnostics and treatments.

Our current projects address three key questions:

1. How do single-cell dynamics link biological mechanisms to circuit pathology and symptoms? Can brain-wide circuit pathologies improve understanding of perception and identify new treatments for specific biological targets?
2. How do external factors like gut microbiomes, sleep abnormalities, and environmental stress influence pathological states and circuit dynamics, and how do these interactions evolve with disease progression and symptoms?
3. Can computation modelling and artificial intelligence be applied to distill insights from large scale dense datasets, and improve our understanding of neuropathology, asymptomatic brain disorder detection, and bio-subtyping of neuropsychiatric disorders in the community?

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2023 The Kavli Foundation NWB Hackathon Award.
2015-2020 Medical Research Council Postdoctoral Training Fellowship, MRC, UK.
2019 FENS IBRO Travel Award, FENS, EU.
2019 Guarantors of Brain Travel Award, Guarantors of Brain, UK.
2019 The Carl Storm Diversity Fellowship, Gordon Research Conference.
2019 Medical Research Council Recognition Award for Public engagement, MRC Harwell Institute, UK.
2018 The 41st Japanese Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting Travel Award, JNS, Japan.
2017 Medical Research Council Special Award Scheme Award, MRC Harwell Institute, MRC, UK.
2017 Travel Award for the 19th Annual Genes, Brain and Behavior Meeting of The International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society, Madrid, Spain.
2016 Training Grant for mouse genetics course, Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK.
2014 Medical Research Council Anatomical Neuropharmacology Unit Travel Award for Inhibitory Control of Brain Plasticity Conference, Poland.
2013 Great Britain-China Educational Trust Scholarship, Great Britain-China Educational Trust, UK.

I am dedicated to cultivating a positive lab culture that values both individual wellbeing and productivity. My aim is for my team to reach their full potential in a safe, fair, equitable, and informed environment.

This handbook sets out the processes that I am committed to create such an environment. It is the outcome of a dedicated international workshop, “SAFE Labs,” held in 2024, which focused on identifying the key barriers to establishing Aware, Fair, and Equitable Labs. The participants in the inaugural workshop developed guidelines that serve as the foundation for this handbook, and we look forward to reviewing and updating it to reflect our ongoing progress in this area.

1. Bruijns, S. A., International Brain Laboratory, Bougrova, K., Laranjeira, I. C., Lau, P. Y. P., Meijer, G. T., Miska, N. J., Noel, J.-P., Pan-Vazquez, A., Roth, N., Socha, K. Z., Urai, A. E., & Dayan, P. (2025).
   Dissecting the Complexities of Learning With Infinite Hidden Markov Models
   [Manuscript accepted]. Nature Neuroscience.
2. Perrenoud, S., Lau, P. Y. P., Mastroberardino, G., Wang, Z., International Brain Laboratory, Rossi, L. F., Harris, K. D., Clark, B. A., Roth, A., & Hausser, M. (2025).
   Brain-wide dendritic signals exhibit circuit-specific behavioural modulation
   [Manuscript submitted]. Nature.
3. International Brain Laboratory. (2025).
   A brain-wide map of neural activity during complex behaviour.
   Nature, 645, 177–191.
4. Findling, C., Hubert, F., International Brain Laboratory, Acerbi, L., Benson, B., Benson, J., Birman, D., Bonacchi, N., Carandini, M., Catarino, J. A., Chapuis, G. A., Churchland, A. K., Dan, Y., DeWitt, E. J., Engel, T. A., Fabbri, M., Faulkner, M., Fiete, I. R., Freitas-Silva, L., Gerçek, B., Harris, K. D., Häusser, M., Hofer, S. B., Hu, F., Huntenburg, J. M., Khanal, A., Krasniak, C., Langdon, C., Latham, P. E., Lau, P. Y. P., Mainen, Z., Meijer, G. T., Miska, N. J., Mrsic-Flogel, T. D., Noel, J.-P., Nylund, K., Pan-Vazquez, A., Paninski, L., Pillow, J., Rossant, C., Roth, N., Schaeffer, R., Schartner, M., Shi, Y., Socha, K. Z., Steinmetz, N. A., Svoboda, K., Tessereau, C., Urai, A. E., Wells, M. J., West, S. J., Whiteway, M. R., Winter, O., Witten, I. B., Zador, A., Dayan, P., & Pouget, A. (2025).
   Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making.
   Nature, 645, 192–200.
5. International Brain Laboratory. (2025).
   Reproducibility of in vivo electrophysiological measurements in mice.
   eLife, 13, RP100840. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.100840
6. Bafna A., Lau PYP, Banks G., and Nolan PM,
   Harvesting mouse suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) by vibrating microtome for diurnal transcriptome analysis
   STAR Protocol, 2023, accepted. International Brain Laboratory, Banga K., et al. “Reproducibility of in-vivo electrophysiological measurements in mice,” bioRxiv, (2022, doi:10.1101/2022.05.09.491042)..
7. Banks G, Guillaumin M, Heise I, Lau P, Yin MH, Bourbia N, Aguilar C, Bowl M, Esapa C, Brown L, Hasan S, Tagliatti E, Nicholson E, Bains RS, Wells S, Vyazovskiy VV, Volynski K, Peirson S.
   Aberrant synaptic release underlies sleep/wake transition deficits in a mouse Vamp2 mutant
   Science Advances, 12 Aug 2020, Vol 6, Issue 33, doi:10.1126/sciadv.abb3567..
8. Lamsa K, Lau P.
   Long-term plasticity of hippocampal interneurons during in vivo memory processes
   Curr Opin Neurobiol, 2019 Feb;54:20-27, doi:10.1016/j.conb.2018.08.006..
9. Stewart M, Lau P, Banks G, Bains RS, Castroflorio E, Oliver PL, Dixon CL, Kruer MC, Kullmann DM, Acevedo-Arozena A, Wells SE, Corrochano S, Nolan PM.
   Loss of Frrs1l disrupts synaptic AMPA receptor function, and results in neurodevelopmental, motor, cognitive and electrographical abnormalities
   Dis Model Mech, 2019 Jan 28, pii: dmm.036806, doi: 10.1242/dmm.036806..\.
10. Banks G, Lassi G, Hoerder-Suabedissen A, Tinarelli F, Simon MM, Wilcox A, Lau P, Lawson TN, Johnson S, Rutman A, Sweeting M, Chesham JE, Barnard AR, Horner N, Westerberg H, Smith LB, Molnar Z, Hastings MH, Hirst RA, Tucci V, Nolan PM.
    A missense mutation in Katnal1 underlies behavioral, neurological, and ciliary anomalies
    Mol Psychiatry, 2018 Mar;23(3):713-722, doi: 10.1038/mp.2017.54..
11. Lau PY, Katona L, Saghy P, Newton K, Somogyi P, Lamsa KP.
    Long-term plasticity in identified hippocampal GABAergic interneurons in the CA1 area in vivo
    Brain Struct Funct, 2017 May;222(4):1809-1827, doi: 10.1007/s00429-016-1309-7.

Co-Supervisor of:
Mr. HUNG, Tin Shing Jacky