Resume

Short bio

Yongning Lei is a Ph.D. candidate in Cognitive Neuroscience of Language at the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) in San Sebastián, Spain, supported by a BFI Predoctoral Fellowship from the Basque Government.

His research asks where reading happens in each individual brain. Combining dense-sampling fMRI, retinotopic mapping, diffusion MRI and quantitative MRI, the work maps the reading-selective regions of the ventral occipitotemporal cortex, traces their white-matter connections to the language network, and measures how much they vary from person to person.

Alongside the science, he builds open-source tools for reproducible neuroimaging, from Launchcontainers, which runs containerized pipelines on high-performance computing, to Delineation Helper, a browser-based tool for drawing ROIs on the cortical surface. He co-organized the 2026 BCBL workshop on a consensus framework for reading ROI delineation, and holds an M.Sc. from BCBL and a B.Sc. in Neuroscience from NYU Shanghai.

Education

Additional training

Research experience

Research expertise & technical skills

* Equal contribution. # Corresponding author.

Preprints & manuscripts under review

  1. Lerma-Usabiaga, G.#, Lei, Y., Vianna de Almeida, R., Carreiras, M., & Paz-Alonso, P. M. (under review). An anatomical boundary in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex segregates ventral and dorsal white matter connections to the inferior frontal gyrus. Journal of Vision, Special Issue: The Vision–Language Interface.
  2. Martinez-Zaldivar, M.*, Lei, Y.*, & Lerma-Usabiaga, G.# (preprint). Design and validation of a hybrid stimulus fMRI paradigm for simultaneous retinotopy and mapping of reading-selective visual cortex. PsyArXiv.

Manuscripts in preparation

  1. Lei, Y., Behrmann, M., Bouhali, F., Dalski, A., Gagl, B., Grill-Spector, K., Grotheer, M., Mitchell, J., Nordt, M., Op de Beeck, H., Weiner, K., White, A. L., Woolnough, O., Yeatman, J. D., Zhan, M., & Lerma-Usabiaga, G.# (in preparation). Reducing the variability in fMRI: The case of reading ROI delineation.
  2. Lei, Y., Wang, S., Paz-Alonso, P. M., & Lerma-Usabiaga, G.# (in preparation). Individual-level quantification of white-matter connectivity in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex.
  3. Lei, Y., Paz-Alonso, P. M., & Lerma-Usabiaga, G.# (in preparation). Quantification and characterization of ventral occipitotemporal reading circuits.
  4. Lei, Y., Paz-Alonso, P. M., & Lerma-Usabiaga, G.# (in preparation). A multimodal dense-sampled MRI dataset for ventral occipitotemporal reading circuits.
  5. Lerma-Usabiaga, G.#, Lei, Y., Paz-Alonso, P. M., Taguma, D., Yokoi, I., Kinjo, T., Tsuchida, S., Miyata, T., Matsuda, T., Takemura, H., & Santhi Rajan, B. K. (in preparation). Automatic region delineation of the reading circuitry in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex.

Invited talks

  1. Lei, Y. (2026). Quantification of white-matter connectivity in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex. Invited talk at University Paul Valéry, Montpellier, France.

Conference presentations & workshops

  1. Lei, Y., Paz-Alonso, P. M., & Lerma-Usabiaga, G. (2026). Towards precise and reproducible localization of cortical reading circuits with dense-sampled fMRI. Poster presented at the 5th International Workshop on Reading and Developmental Dyslexia (iWORDD), San Sebastián, Spain.
  2. Wang, S., Lei, Y., Paz-Alonso, P. M., & Lerma-Usabiaga, G. (2026). Anatomical segregation of ventral and dorsal pathways to the inferior frontal gyrus in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex. Oral presentation at the XV SEPEX & II Joint SEPEX–BAPS Meeting, Valencia, Spain.
  3. Lei, Y., White, A. L., & Lerma-Usabiaga, G. (2026). Towards a consensus framework for reading ROI delineation in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex. Online workshop hosted by BCBL. Materials
  4. Sánchez-Paniagua, A., Lei, Y., Wang, S., Santhi Rajan, B. K., Paz-Alonso, P. M., & Lerma-Usabiaga, G. (2026). Automated individual-subject functional parcellation of the reading circuitry in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex. Oral presentation at Computational Cognitive Neuroscience (CCN), New York, NY.
  5. Lei, Y., Paz-Alonso, P. M., & Lerma-Usabiaga, G. (2026). Towards precise and reproducible localization of cortical reading circuits with dense-sampled fMRI. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM), Bordeaux, France.
  6. Lerma-Usabiaga, G., Martinez-Zaldivar, M., & Lei, Y.# (2026). Population receptive field parameters are biased by stimulus features. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Pete Beach, FL.
  7. Lei, Y., Paz-Alonso, P. M., & Lerma-Usabiaga, G. (2025). Quantification of white-matter connectivity in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Pete Beach, FL.
  8. Lei, Y., Linhardt, D., Paz-Alonso, P. M., & Lerma-Usabiaga, G. (2024). Quantification of reading circuits in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex. Poster presented at Neurogune, Donostia–San Sebastián, Spain.
  9. Lei, Y., Linhardt, D., Paz-Alonso, P. M., & Lerma-Usabiaga, G. (2024). Quantification of reading circuits in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Pete Beach, FL.
  10. Linhardt, D., Lei, Y., Paz-Alonso, P. M., Wandell, B., Windischberger, C., & Lerma-Usabiaga, G. (2024). Comparing pRF mapping estimates for words and checker patterns. Poster presented at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, St. Pete Beach, FL.
  11. Lei, Y. (2023). Launchcontainers: A Python tool for launching containerized analysis on high-performance computing. Workshop presented at BrainHack Donostia, Donostia–San Sebastián, Spain.

Awards & fellowships

Mentorship

Professional service & memberships

Leadership & extracurricular

Languages

Interests