Nuo Li, Ph.D.

Sections

Nuo Li, Ph.D.
Title
Assistant Professor
Department
Neuroscience
Institution
Baylor College of Medicine
Address
One Baylor Plaza, T632
City, State, ZIP
Houston, TX 77030
Phone
(713) 798-4301
Email
[email protected]
Website
https://www.bcm.edu/research/labs/nuo-li
Research field
Neuroscience
Award year
2018

Research

The Li lab will investigate how multiple parts of the brain cooperate to guide decisions based on short-term memory. Deciding how to act appropriately to a stimulus—particularly one that occurred in the past—is a complex cognitive task that engages many areas of the brain. Whether these brain regions act simultaneously, feed information back and forth, or report to a central “node” to orchestrate their output is unknown. As a postdoctoral fellow, I identified a subregion of the brain that controls a mouse’s decision to make directional movements a second or two after a sensory instruction—a response that involves short-term memory, planning, and executing movement. Now, using a suite of cutting-edge techniques for monitoring and manipulating the activity of neurons in different parts of the brain, our lab will serially inactivate a number of different areas that are functionally coupled to the previously identified subregion and assess how these perturbations alter its activity—and affect the mouse’s decision-making abilities. By dissecting the neural circuits involved in such behavior, we could identify new targets for therapies that enhance cognitive processes or limit cognitive decline.

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