Loh, Kep Kee

Loh Kep Kee

Senior Tutor

Ph.D. (Université Claude Bernard Lyon I), M.Sc. (UCL), B.Soc.Sci. (Hons.) (NUS)

I am interested in what makes the human brain special compared to other primates. To answer this question, I study the anatomical organization of brains across humans and various primate species (e.g. chimpanzees, baboons and macaques) to reveal the ways they are similar, and different from one another. Brains are highly complex structures that can vary in many ways: they can vary in their overall or regional brain sizes, cortical folding patterns, connections, or underlying cellular organization. I employ different magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques (e.g. anatomical, resting-state, diffusion-weighted MRI) to compare different aspects of brain organization across species. I believe that a multimodal approach is crucial in providing an integrative and holistic view of what sets our brains apart from other primates.

Presently, I am an NUS Overseas Postdoctoral Fellow based at the Montreal Neurological Institute (McGill University) and the University of Oxford. During this fellowship, I will compare the anatomical organisation of the medial frontal cortex across human, chimpanzee, baboon and macaque brains using a combination of MRI-based and histological methods.

Research Interests:

  • Comparative primate neuroanatomy
  • Sulcal anatomy and function relationships in the primate frontal cortex
  • Comparative MRI methods
  • Evolution of speech and language in the human brain

Recent/Representative Publications:

Becker, Y., Loh, K. K., Coulon, O., Meguerditchian, A. (2021). The Arcuate Fasciculus and language origins: Disentangling existing conceptions that influence evolutionary accounts. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.12.013

Loh, K. K., Procyk, E., Neveu, R., Lamberton, F., Hopkins, William D., Petrides, M., & Amiez, C. (2020). Cognitive control of orofacial motor and vocal responses in the ventrolateral and dorsomedial human frontal cortex. PNAS. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1916459117

Loh, K. K., Petrides, M., Hopkins, W. D., Procyk, E. & Amiez, C. (2017). Cognitive control of vocalizations in the primate ventrolateral-dorsomedial frontal (VLF-DMF) brain network. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.12.001