Rate My Professor Tsukasa Kamigaki

Tsukasa Kamigaki is an Assistant Professor of Systems Neuroscience at Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University. He earned a B.S. from the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo in 2004, an M.S. from the Graduate School of Medicine at the University of Tokyo in 2006, and a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Medicine at the University of Tokyo in 2010. Following his doctorate, he served as a Project Researcher at the University of Tokyo School of Medicine from 2010 to 2011. He then held a postdoctoral researcher position at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, from 2011 to June 2019. In July 2019, he joined Nanyang Technological University as Assistant Professor.

His research focuses on the organization of the prefrontal cortex for executive function, including working memory, impulse control, cognitive aging, and related neural circuits. Key publications include “Delay Activity of Specific Prefrontal Interneuron Subtypes Modulates Memory-Guided Behavior” in Nature Neuroscience (2017), “Long-range and local circuits for top-down modulation of visual cortex processing” in Science (2014), “Functional alterations of the prefrontal circuit underlying cognitive aging in mice” in Nature Communications (2023), “Dissociable cortical contributions to impulse control during waiting” in Science Advances (2025), and “Essential role of VGLUT2-negative claustro-prefrontal projections in working memory” in Current Biology (2026). He has received awards such as the MCB Outstanding Postdoc Award in Neurobiology from the University of California, Berkeley (2018), the Japan Neuroscience Society Young Investigator Award (2018), a Long-Term Fellowship from the Human Frontier Science Program (2012), a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Uehara Memorial Foundation (2011), and a JSPS Research Fellowship for Young Scientists DC1 (2007). He teaches courses including Introduction to Neuroscience, Neural Systems & Behaviour, and Neural Underpinnings of Mental Health at the school.