Research
Generally, my research combines experimental designs of environmental stressors on mice models with multiple techniques essential for neuroscience and psychiatry research, including animal behavioral tests, application of various optical microscopes, and assessment of histological changes via multiple imaging analytical software.
Nonetheless, we will still encounter interesting new techniques and designs in our adventure of neuroscience.
Exaple films of an interesting behavioral task: the Amphetamine challenge test, which shows us the responses of animal to the psychostimulus targeting the dopaminergic system. The mouse that underwent 72 h sleep deprivation (left) was more active than the normal sleep mouse (right). Here is the whole story.
"Jacob's Dream" by Giorgio Vasari II, reserved in the Walter's Art Museum
"And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And there was Jehovah, standing above it; and He said, I am Jehovah, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give to you and to your seed."
- GENESIS 28: 12-13
他夢見一個梯子立在地上，梯子的頂通著天，有神的使者在梯子上，上去下來。耶和華站在梯子以上，說，我是耶和華你祖亞伯拉罕的神，也是以撒的神；我要將你現在所躺臥之地，賜給你和你的後裔。
—聖經舊約《創世紀》二十八章12-13節
GOAL
Like Jacob, who left his sweet home and family at a young age to establish his own career, most adolescents and young adults start to face tones of challenges upon entering into a new identity, academic responsibility, or lifestyle. Among the various potential stressors, sleep insufficiency has been recognized as a serious health risk factor. In the awareness of the danger of sleep insufficiency, we aim to identified the long-term neuropathological impacts of insufficient sleep to the psychological health of adolescents. And, ultimately, to find out the preventative or therapeutic strategies to protect the youths.
APPROACHES
Currently, we applies a novel chronic sleep restriction (CSR) paradigm on C57/BL6 young mice and conducts experiments to evaluate the changes in their behaviors and brains. Recently, we have interesting findings in the neurobehavioral phenotypes regarding the cognitive capacity after CSR.
A demonstration of subject mouse running the "Barnes maze", a complicated behavioral experiment that help us to evaluate their spatial learning and memory performance.
