Lab Leader: Siyu Zhang

Lab Name: Laboratory of Neural Circuits and Cognitive Behavior

Lab Info：Our lab focuses on the investigation of the neuronal circuit and cognitive behavior. We develop new mouse models to investigate selective attention and decision making, and dissect the underlying circuit mechanisms of these cognitive behaviors. We combine virus-assisted circuit mapping, in vivo and in vitro electrophysiology, in vivo Ca2+ imaging, and cell-type-specific optogenetic manipulation to understand the neuronal circuit and cognitive behavior.

Our study includes:

1. Anatomic connectome of attention- and decision-making circuit

We use various viral tools to dissect the anatomic connectomes of cell-type-specific and target-region-specific neuronal subtypes and use our custom-written software package to process the digitized brain images. Detected signals were quantified across the whole brain and projected to the 3D reference atlas for better visualization.

2. Functional connectome of attention- and decision-making circuit

Based on the cognitive behavior mouse model and the anatomic analysis of the related circuits, we combine the tools indicated above to investigate how the long-range projections recruit different types of neurons in the local circuit to exert their function and how neuromodulators modulate these processes.

Lab Members: