Lebenslauf

04.2013 -                TEM study on VIP interneurons in barrel cortex group led by Prof. Staiger J.F.

06.2012                  Get DAAD Ph.D. scholarship 

09.2009‐06.2012   M.Sc. in Basic Psychology, School of Cognitive Psychology, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

09.2005-06.2009     B.A. in Animal Science, School of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Huazhong Agricultural  University, Wuhan, China

Forschung

Interneurons in neocortex can be divided into three distinct groups by their expressed molecular, PV+ interneuron, SOM+ interneuron, and VIP+ interneuron (Xu et al., 2010). Among the three groups, VIP+ interneurons seem to be the lowest in population and have been least studied by researchers. Most VIP interneurons VIP neurons in hippocampus are interneuron-specific interneurons, i.e. exlcusively controlling (orchestrating) other GABAergic interneurons. For the cortex this is assumed as well but was never really proven. Evidence shows that VIP interneurons could target other interneurons in specific layers but with the same axons of pyramidal cells in other layers. Due to their two opposite kinds of targeting, VIP interneurons may not be a typical inhibitory interneuron. 

To explore the problem, we want to detect the possible targets of VIP interneurons by using transmission electron microscopy techniques. We do experiments on the transgenic mice (VIP Cre-dtomato) whose florescence signals can only be detected in VIP interneurons. We cooperate with Alvar Prönneke, the Ph.D. students who do electrophysiological study on VIP interneurons, fill them with biocytin, and reconstruct them under Neurolucida. Our goal is to explore the connectivity of VIP interneurons in order to help understand their functions in sematosensory cortex.