Ke Bo, PhD

Assistant Professor of Psychology, UT Dallas. PI of the AIMM Lab — Affective NeuroImaging and Modeling for Mental Health.

Publications

Selected publications. A complete list is available on Google Scholar. (* denotes equal contribution.)

Peer-reviewed journal articles

Bo, K., Cui, L., Chen, Y., Chen, G., Keil, A., & Ding, M. (2026). Neural representation of emotional valence in human amygdala and surrounding regions. NeuroImage, 326, 121693. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2026.121693

Kwon, M., Bo, K., Botvinik-Nezer, R., Kragel, P. A., Van Oudenhove, L., Wager, T. D., & Affective Neuroimaging Consortium. (2026). Convergent and selective representations of pain, appetitive processes, aversive processes, and cognitive control in the insula. Nature Communications, 17(1), 5186. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71568-9

Miao, Z., Jung, H., Kragel, P. A., Bo, K., Sadil, P., Lindquist, M. A., & Wager, T. D. (2026). Common and distinct neural correlates of social interaction processing and theory of mind in narratives. Nature Communications, 17(1), 4830. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71151-2

Zhang, J.-X.*, Bo, K.*, Wager, T. D., & Gross, J. J. (2025). The brain bases of emotion generation and emotion regulation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 29(10), 879–891. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.04.013

Cui, L., Bo, K., Xiong, C., Chen, Y., Keil, A., & Ding, M. (2025). Stimulus repetition induces a two-stage learning process in the primary visual cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 45(23), e1788242025. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1788-24.2025

Kelly, C., Trumpff, C., Acosta, C., Assuras, S., Baker, J., Basarrate, S., Behnke, A., Bo, K., … Picard, M. (2024). A platform to map the mind–mitochondria connection and the hallmarks of psychobiology: The MiSBIE study. Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, 35(10), 884–901. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tem.2024.08.006

Bo, K., Kraynak, T. E., Kwon, M., Sun, M., Gianaros, P. J., & Wager, T. D. (2024). A systems identification approach using Bayes factors to deconstruct the brain bases of emotion regulation. Nature Neuroscience, 27(5), 975–987. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-024-01605-7

Liu, P., Bo, K., Ding, M., & Fang, R. (2024). Emergence of emotion selectivity in deep neural networks trained to recognize visual objects. PLOS Computational Biology, 20(3), e1011943. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011943

Liang, Y., Bo, K., Meyyappan, S., & Ding, M. (2024). Decoding fMRI data with support vector machines and deep neural networks. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 401, 110004. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneumeth.2023.110004

Bo, K., Cui, L., Yin, S., Hu, Z., Hong, X., Kim, S., Keil, A., & Ding, M. (2022). Decoding the temporal dynamics of affective scene processing. NeuroImage, 261, 119532. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119532

Bo, K., Yin, S., Liu, Y., Hu, Z., Meyyappan, S., Kim, S., Keil, A., & Ding, M. (2021). Decoding neural representations of affective scenes in retinotopic visual cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 31(6), 3047–3063. https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhaa411

Hong, X., Bo, K., Meyyappan, S., Tong, S., & Ding, M. (2020). Decoding attention control and selection in visual spatial attention. Human Brain Mapping, 41(14), 3900–3921. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.25094

Yin, S., Bo, K., Liu, Y., Thigpen, N., Keil, A., & Ding, M. (2020). Fear conditioning prompts sparser representations of conditioned threat in primary visual cortex. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 15(9), 950–964. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsaa122

Book chapters

Bo, K., & Wager, T. D. (2025). Placebo effects and emotion regulation: Conceptual and neural similarities and differences. In F. Benedetti & A. Shaibani (Eds.), Placebo effects in neurology (Handbook of Clinical Neurology, Vol. 213, pp. 17–29). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-29884-4.00004-2

Bo, K., & Wager, T. D. (2023). The brain bases of emotion regulation: Evidence from fMRI. In J. J. Gross & B. Q. Ford (Eds.), Handbook of emotion regulation (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.

Preprints and manuscripts under review

Bo, K., Kelly, C., Trumpff, C., Hirano, M., Thiebaut de Schotten, M., Picard, M., & Wager, T. D. (2026). Mitochondrial energy transformation capacity influences brain activation during sensory, affective, and cognitive tasks. bioRxiv, 2025.06.25.661482. Manuscript in revision. https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.06.25.661482

Bo, K., Lindquist, M. A., Gianaros, P. J., & Wager, T. D. (2026). Spatiotemporal dissociation of human amygdala response to negative affect. Manuscript submitted for publication.