Kazuhisa Shibata, Ph.D.

Research Overview

We know ourselves less than we expect because most information processing in the brain occurs without our consciousness. Our lab is broadly interested in how we recognize (cognition), how we decide (decision-making), and how we change through experience (learning) with an emphasis on interactions between conscious and subconscious processing in the human brain. We take an interdisciplinary approach including psychophysics, neuroimaging, machine learning, and computational modeling.

Main Research Fields

Biological Sciences

Related Research Fields

Engineering / Informatics / Humanities / Social Sciences / Basic/Social brain science / Experimental psychology / Neurophysiology/General neuroscience

Keywords

• Perception
• Cognition
• Learning
• Neuroimaging
• Artificial intelligence

Selected Publications

* Corresponding authors
† Equal contribution

1. Bruns, P.†*, Shibata, K.†*, and Watanabe, T.:
   "Conscious awareness determines whether a second learning session disrupts or facilitates earlier learning"
   Current Biology, 35 (19): 4803-4809 (2025).
   https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982225010401
2. Kikumoto, A.*, Bhandari, A., Shibata, K., and Badre, D.:
   "A transient high-dimensional geometry affords stable conjunctive subspaces for efficient action selection"
   Nature Communications, 15: 8513 (2024).
   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52777-6
3. Bang, JW.†, Shibata, K.†, Frank, S.†, Walsh, EG., Greenlee, M., Watanabe, T.*, and Sasaki, Y.:
   "Consolidation and reconsolidation share behavioral and neurochemical mechanisms"
   Nature Human Behavior, 2: 507-513 (2018).
   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-018-0366-8
4. Watanabe, T.†, Sasaki, Y.†, Shibata, K.†, and Kawato, M.†*:
   "Advances in fMRI real-time neurofeedback"
   Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21: 997-1010 (2017).
   https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661317301985
5. Shibata, K., Sasaki, Y., Bang, JW., Walsh, EG., Machizawa, MG., Tamaki, M., Chang, LH., and Watanabe, T.*:
   "Overlearning hyperstabilizes a skill by rapidly making neurochemical processing inhibitory-dominant"
   Nature Neuroscience, 20: 470-475 (2017).
   https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.4490
6. Koizumi, A., Amano, K., Cortese, A., Shibata, K., Yoshida, W., Seymour, B.*, Kawato, M.*, and Lau, H.*:
   "Fear reduction without fear through reinforcement of neural activity that bypasses conscious exposure"
   Nature Human Behavior, 1: 0006 (2016).
   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-016-0006
7. Shibata, K., Watanabe, T., Kawato, M.*, and Sasaki, Y.:
   "Differential activation patterns in the same brain region led to opposite emotional states"
   PLoS Biology, 14 (9): e1002546 (2016).
   https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002546
8. Chang, LH., Shibata, K., Andersen, GJ., Sasaki, Y., and Watanabe, T.*:
   "Age-related declines of stability in visual perceptual learning"
   Current Biology, 24: 2926-2929 (2014).
   https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982214013505
9. Shibata, K., Kawato, M., Watanabe, T.*, and Sasaki, Y.:
   "Monocular deprivation boosts long-term visual plasticity"
   Current Biology, 22 (9): R291-292 (2012).
   https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(12)00267-9
10. Shibata, K., Watanabe, T.*, Sasaki, Y., and Kawato, M.:
    "Perceptual learning incepted by decoded neurofeedback without stimulus presentation"
    Science, 334 (6061): 1413-1415 (2011).
    https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1212003