Biography

I have been working on how time is processed in the brain. My initial model system was the circadian clock network, where I showed that clocks do not always agree on time and the degree of disagreement represents the seasonal time. My recent research on cognitive consequences of time processing has led me to issues in consciousness and neuroscientific interpretation of epistemology.

Project Abstract

With chronobiologist Hanspeter Herzel and musicologist Jin Hyun Kim, we would like to explore how biological rhythms and music are entangled through the history of time. The rhythms in our body have a natural time scale set by how the neurons and muscles are constructed. One example is vocal tremor. Music is a temporally organized code that expresses our internal mood states, but it also exploits these biological features to enrich its performance. The evolution of music can be compared to the evolution of humanity, and the ancient and various ethnic forms of music can be studied in connection with the principles of biological rhythms. Since music has been the window into consciousness, we hope this interdisciplinary study develops into a long-term research for the subjectivity of time. The approach we take is not abstract but concrete, since the context of time we focus on is based on musical structures and biological constraints.

Curriculum vitae

2016 – 2017

Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Germany

2016 – 2017  

Visiting Researcher, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan

2013 – 2016  

Research Scientist, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan

2012 – 2013  

Assistant Professor, Hiroshima University, Japan

Selected Publications

A. Azzi, JA. Evans, T. Leise, J. Myung, T. Takumi, AJ. Davidson, SA. Brown, "Network dynamics mediate circadian clock plasticity", in: Neuron. 93 (2017), 441–450.

J. Myung, S. Hong, D. DeWoskin, E. De Schutter, DB. Forger, T. Takumi, "GABA-mediated repulsive coupling between circadian clock neurons in the SCN encodes seasonal time", in: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 112 (2015), E3920–E3929.

D. DeWoskin, J. Myung, MDC. Belle, HD. Piggins, T. Takumi, DB. Forger, "Distinct roles for GABA across multiple timescales in mammalian circadian timekeeping", in: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 112 (2015), E3911–E3919.

A. Goriki, F. Hatanaka, J. Myung, JK. Kim, T. Yoritaka, S. Tanoue, T. Abe, H. Kiyonari, K. Fujimoto, Y. Kato, T. Todo, A. Matsubara, D. Forger, T. Takumi, "A Novel protein, CHRONO, functions as a core component of the mammalian circadian clock", in: PLoS Biol. 12 (2014), e1001839.

J. Myung, S. Hong, F. Hatanaka, Y. Nakajima, E. De Schutter, T. Takumi, "Period coding of Bmal1 oscillators in the suprachiasmatic nucleus", in: J. Neurosci. 32 (2012), 8900–8918.