Alan started his research on continuous-attractor neural network (CANN) models in 2006. He has jointly discovered the intrinsic dynamics of CANN under the influence of dynamical synapses (Fung, Wong & Wu, 2010; Fung et al., 2012). After that, he has jointly proposed the anticipatory behaviour observed in CANN. The anticipatory behaviour can explain how the head-direction (HD) cells in the rat anterior thalamic nucleus (ATN) encode future head directions (Fung, Wong & Wu, 2012). Recently, Alan found that the CANN with short-term depression can address the discrete-attractor-like behaviour observed in the hippocampus during periods of non-rapid-eye-movement sleep (Fung & Fukai, 2019).

Besides CANN, Alan has also contributed other modelling works to address phenomena observed in experiments. In 2016, Alan jointly proposed a mathematical model to explain the integration of saccadic motion and visual signal (Wang et al., 2016). In 2019, Alan jointly contributed an algorithm based on adult neurogenesis observed in the dentate gyrus to perform pattern separation. The algorithm can be a potential machine learning algorithm for future usage. In 2021, Alan supplied a series of predictions on long-term synaptic plasticity due to neurotransmitter release probability distribution modulated by the suppression of NMDA astrocytic receptors (Chipman et al., 2021). The further implication is still under investigation.