On June 1, 2010, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA published a research article from ION entitled "Functional feedback from mushroom bodies to antennal lobes in the Drosophila olfactory pathway". This work was carried out by postdoctoral fellow Dr. Aiqun Hu and graduate student Wei Zhang from the Laboratory of Dr. Zuoren Wang at ION.
Somatosensory neuron types were identified by high-coverage single-cell RNA-sequencing and functional heterogeneity, as reported on Dec. 22th in Cell Research. High-coverage single-cell RNA-sequencing was performed to identify neuron types by size-based hierarchical clustering. Physiological functions were determined by the responses of somatosensory neuron to peripheral stimuli recorded by in vivo patch clamp.
In a recent study, Dr. DU Jiulin’s lab found that Dopamine release can be evoked by a hedonic olfactory stimulus, monitored in real time, and traced to its circuit origin in the transparent brain of zebrafish larvae. This work demonstrated for the first time that sensory-evoked dopamine release can be successfully monitored in the brain of an awake small organism.
In a recent study, researchers at the Institute of Neuroscience, reported that Transient receptor potential canonical (TRPC) 6 blocked the interaction between APP and γ-secretase to specifically suppress Aβ production. TRPC6 specifically interacts with APP (C99), but not with Notch, and prevents C99 interaction with presenilin 1 (PS1), leading to inhibition of γ-secretase cleavage of APP and Aβ production. A fusion peptide derived from TRPC6 also reduced Aβ levels without affecting Notch cleavage.
A Delegation from the Brain Science Institute of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST-BSI) visited ION on November 8, 2015. Members included Profs. Dennis Choi (Director General of KIST-BSI), Changjoon Justin Lee and Dongjin Kim.
In a recent study, Dr. SUN Qiang’s research group successfully accelerated the sexual maturity of juvenile cynomolgus monkeys by testicular xenografting. Testicular tissues were obtained from one 14-month wild-type (WT) and one 27-month HA-hMeCP2-2a-GFP transgenic（Tg） monkey, and implanted subcutaneously in adult castrated nude mice.
In a recent study published online in Cell, Dr. YU Xiang’s research group demonstrated a novel mechanism through which the pruning and maturation of dendritic spines in the developing brain are coordinated by the cadherin/catenin cell adhesion complex.
The 2015 ION Mini-Symposium on Systems Neuroscience was held at the Institute of Neuroscience on July 4th, 2015. Profs. Jose Carmena (University of California, Berkeley, USA), Vikaas Sohal (University of California, San Francisco, USA), Nirao Shah University of California, San Francisco, USA ), Botond Roska (University of Basel, Switzerland) presented their recent findings. Prof. Muming Poo hosted this symposium. More than 160 researchers from ION attended this symposium.
In a recent study, Dr. ZHOU Jiawei’s lab found that a Rho family GEF protein Vav2 is required for glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) and its cognate receptor Ret-modulated DAT cell surface expression and transporter activity.
A recent study, published in the June 24th issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, demonstrated that expression of a single transcription factor efficiently induced astrocyte-to-neurons conversion in the intact brain. This work provides a novel approach to obtain functional neurons in the intact brain and a potential therapeutic solution for neural regeneration.
The 2015 ION Mini-Symposium on Glial Cell Development and Function was held at the Institute of Neuroscience on June 19th, 2015. Profs. Benjamin Deneen (Baylor College of Medicine, USA), Changjoon Justin Lee (Institute of Science & Technology, Korea), Masamitsu Iino (University of Tokyo, Japan), Marco Prinz (University of Freiburg, Germany) presented their recent findings.
In a recent study, graduate student WANG Liang under the supervision of Dr. POO Mu-ming, examined the function of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is expressed in adult-born GCs, in regulating their dendrite morphogenesis.
A recent study published on the Journal of Cell Biology demonstrated that the neuron migration is controlled by three highly dynamic contraction centers (CCs) which are regulated by guidance cues. This work was performed mainly by graduate student JIANG Jian in the laboratory of POO Mu-ming.
In a recent study, Dr. WANG Zheng’s lab proposed a novel method to unveil the intrinsic features of functional brain connectivity matrices of discriminative power for group comparison. Morespecifically, by encouraging co-selection of edges connected to the same node in the connectivity matrix, the discriminative edges are preserved to maximumextent.
During May 14 - 26, Dr. Jiulin Du was invited to attend an international symposium on “Combining Information from Multiple Modalities Across the Animal Kingdom” held by HHMI at Janelia Farm, and was invited to visit University of Michigan, Yale University and Harvard University, and gave seminars about neuromodulation-mediated cross-modal modulation and sensorimotor transformation control”.
Dr. Jiulin Du was invited to attend the Third Zebrafish Symposium on System Neuroscience held by HHMI at Janelia Farm during April 22 – 25, and gave a talk entitled “Visual cue-specific dopaminergic control of visuomotor transformation and behavior selection”.
A recent study from Dr. YAO Haishan's lab at the Institute of Neuroscience, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, demonstrated that Parvalbumin (PV)-expressing interneurons play an important role in controlling the response reliability of excitatory neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1).
In a recent study, graduate student LV Qian and postdoc YANG Liqin under the supervision of Dr. WANG Zheng and Dr. HU Hailan, conducted a randomized, placebo-controlled functional connectome study on anesthetized monkeys 18 hours after ketamine and saline administration.
Dr. Jiulin Du was invited to attend the International Symposium “Microglia: key to understand neural development and pathology” held by Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology during Feb. 27 to March 02, and gave a talk entitled “Interaction between microglia and neurons”.
A study from Dr. CAI Shiqing's lab at the Institute of Neuroscience, identified three C. elegans KChIP-like (ceKChIP) proteins, NCS-4, NCS-5, and NCS-7. This research was published in the Journal of Neuroscience on February 4, 2015. This work was mainly carried out by graduate student CHEN Xin and research assistant RUAN Meiyu.
In a recent study, graduate student LI Yang and colleagues under the supervision of Dr. XIONG Zhi-Qi, reported that Regulators of calcineurin 1 (Rcan1), a Down Syndrome-related gene, plays an important role in radial migration of rat cortical neurons.
ION research finding “Study of a novel mechanism for neuron synaptogenesis promoted by TRPC”, carried out by Drs. Yi-Zheng Wang, Xiao-Bing Yuan, Yi-Chang Jia, Jian Zhou and their colleagues, received a second prize award of the 2014 National Natural Science Award.
In a recent study, CHANG Liangtang and colleagues, under the supervision of Dr. GONG Neng at the Institute of Neuroscience, found that the monkey brain has the basic "hardware" for mirror self-recognition, but need appropriate training to acquire the "software" to achieve self-recognition.
The 2014 ION Annual Meeting was held at the SIBS Lecture Hall from December 29th to 31th, 2014. Twenty-nine ION Principal Investigators introduced their research interests, recent progresses and the future plans during the meeting.
On December 12th to 14th, the first Key Members Meeting of the CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science was held at ION. Fortynine key members, from the support unit of the center and 20 build units of the center attended this meeting. They divided into three groups for in depth discussion on future research plans.
November 26th to 28th, the mid-term review and assessment meeting of CAS Strategic Priority Research Project (Class B) on Mapping of Brain Function was held at the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences. The ten professors were invited to serve as reviewers. The expert group fully affirmed the progress of the the project.
Latest study from Dr. WANG Zuoren's lab found that PPK26 are selectively expressed in class IV dendritic arborization (da) neurons.This research was published online in Cell Reports on November 6, 2014. This work was mainly carried out by graduate students GUO Yanmeng and WANG Yuping under the supervision of Dr. WANG Zuoren.
A recent study published on Science demonstrated that the delay period activity in medial prefrontal cortex is critical for learning a working memory task. This work was performed by the researchers in Dr. LI Chengyu’s lab in the Institute of Neuroscience, Shanghai Institute of Biological Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
On October 8th and 9th, the 2014 Joint Meeting of State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience (SKLN) at ION and State Key Laboratory of Molecular Neuroscience (SKLMN) in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology was held at the Institute of Neuroscience.
On September 27th, the first meeting of the 1st term of Academic Board of CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science was held at ION. Seven members attended this meeting. During the discussion, the board members considered the procedure rational, fair, effective and fully approved the selection results.
On September 22nd, the first Council Meeting of CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science was held in Beijing, hosted by Prof. Rui-Ming Xu, the head of Bureau of Frontier Sciences and Education, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The council members approved the Center’s constitutions, organization, HR rules, project agreement, funding regulation and the first term of Center’s Academic Board members.
On September 26th, 2014, Dr. Xiang Yu (Institute of Neuroscience, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, CAS) was awarded the Shanghai Outstanding Young Scientists Award (Basic Research) for her research on the activity-dependent neural circuit development.
Latest study from Dr. HU Hailan’s lab unraveled an emotional valence map in the forebrain. This research was published online in Nature Neuroscience on September 21, 2014. This work was mainly carried out by graduate students XIU Jianbo and ZHANG Qi under the supervision of Dr. HU Hailan.
Dr. Hailan Hu was invited to visit RIKEN brain science institute and attend the symposium at the Japanese Society for Neuroscience 2014 held in Yokoyama during Sept 11-13. She gave a talk entitled “Neural Mechanism of Dominance Hierarchy”.
Dr. Jiulin Du was invited to attend the 2014 FEBS-EMBO Conference held in France during Aug 31 – Sept 03 and gave a talk entitled “Dopaminergic Gating of Visuomotor Transformation via Inhibition”.
Based on recommendations of the International Academic Review Committee and ION senior investigators, Dr. Mu-Ming Poo, the director of ION, decided to promote Drs. Jiulin Du, Zuoren Wang, Haishan Yao, Xiang Yu, and Jiawei Zhou to ION senior investigators.The other four young investigators, Drs. Shiqing Cai, Leping Cheng, Chengyu Li and Zilong Qiu, also passed their mid-career review and continuously serve as ION investigators (second term) in the next four years.
Dr. Jiulin Du was invited to visit Japan National Institute of Genetics and attend the 66th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Cell Biology during June 09 – 14. He gave talks entitled “Brain vascular development – pruning and growth” and “Neuronal NMDA receptors regulate brain vessel growth via VEGF signaling”, respectively.
During May 26-28, the 6th Academic Review of ION PIs and the 7th International Advisory Board Meeting were held in Shanghai. Nine principal investigators participated in the 6th Academic Review of ION PIs. Dr. Mu-Ming Poo gave the director’s report to the International Advisory Board.
Dr. Jiulin Du was invited to visit Helmholtz Zentrum München in Germany, and gave a talk entitled “Brain vascular development: pruning and growth” during March 26-28, 2014.
Dr. LUO Zhenge’s lab reported that caspase-3, the effector protease involved in apoptosis, mediates elimination of AChR clusters. They found that caspase-3 was activated by cholinergic stimulation of cultured muscle cells without inducing cell apoptosis and this activation was prevented by agrin. This work was published online in the journal Developmental Cell on March 13, 2014.
A study from Dr. CAI Shiqing’s lab reported that extension of lifespan does not necessarily delay age-related behavioral deterioration. The study demonstrates that dietary restriction preserves healthy behaviors in aged worms at least partially by sustaining a high 5-HT/DA level, and provides new insights to understand aging of the nervous system.
Recently, Dr. QIU Zilong’s lab reported that besides transcriptional regulation, MeCP2 could suppress miRNA processing through regulating the DGCR8/Drosha complex.This work was mainly carried out by graduate student CHENG Tianlin and colleagues under the supervision of Dr. QIU Zilong.
Recently, Dr. WANG Zuoren’s lab found that mlPNs receive inputs from both ORNs and mPNs, and provide lateral outputs to other neurons in the AL via gap junctions. Their study demonstrates that the two pathways formed by GABAergic PNs and cholinergic PNs.
Recently, the research group headed by Dr. LUO Zhenge has shown that Rab10, a member of Rab family of small GTPases, is associated with PPVs, and that Myosin V interaction with Rab10 controls sorting of PPVs from the trans-Golgi network. This study has demonstrated a mechanism underlying directional membrane trafficking involved in axon development.
On Jan. 26th, Dr. Xiang Yu’s research group at the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, published a research article entitled "Oxytocin mediates early experience-dependent crossmodal plasticity in sensory cortices" in the journal Nature Neuroscience as Advance Online publication.
Recently a study from the Institute of Neuroscience, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences showed that the protein kinase LKB1 regulates polarized dendrite formation of adult hippocampal newborn neurons through asymmetric distribution of Golgi apparatus.These findings provide new clues to the subcellular mechanism of LKB1’s action.
Dr. Xu Zhang was invited to the 5th Asian Pain Symposium in Japan from December 17th to December 21st, 2013. During the symposium, Dr. Zhang gave an invited talk entitled ”Role of FXYD2, γ subunit of Na+,K+-ATPase, in inflammatory pain”.
The 2013 ION Annual Meeting was held at the SIBS Lecture Hall from December 26th to 27th, 2013. Forty-seven ION researchers, including graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and research associates, presented their recent works. New faculty members introduced the research directions of their respective laboratories.
Recently, a research team (WANG Xudong, CHEN Cheng, and ZHANG Dinghong) from the laboratory of Dr. YAO Haishan at the Institute of Neuroscience, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences showed that V1 neurons exhibit shorter response latency in the desynchronized brain state than in the synchronized state.
Dr. Jiulin Du was invited to visit the Institute Pasteur, l'Ecole Normale Supérieure and Curie Institute of France during Nov 25 – 30, and gave three talks entitled “Functional crosstalk between resting microglia and neurons”, “Neuronal NMDA receptors regulate brain vascular development” and “A functional module gates visuomotor transformation”.
Mental retardation is a neurological disorder typically associated with brain malformation and intellectual disability. There is increasing evidence showing that mutations on many X-linked genes can lead to different types of mental retardation. Thus studying their function provides a means to understand the physiology and pathology of the neural system.
Dr. Jia-Wei Zhou was invited to attend the 20th East Asia Joint Symposium in Japan from November 7th to November 9th , 2013. During the symposium, Dr. Zhou gave an invited talk entitled "Role of dopamine D2 receptor in the control of neuroinflammation".
On August 30, 2013, Dr. Hailan Hu’s research group published a research report entitled "βCaMKII in lateral habenula mediates core symptoms of depression" in the journal Science. The authors found the new molecular mechanisms underlying the hyperactivity of habenula in depression and identified new molecular targets for gene therapy of depression.
Dr. Xu Zhang was invited to attend International Narcotics Research Conference in Australia from July 13th to July 20th, 2013. During the conference, Dr. Zhang gave an invited talk entitled “Opioid receptor trafficking and interaction in nociceptors and its role in opioid tolerance”.
Dr. Xu Zhang was invited to attend the 8th International Conference of Neurons and Diseases in Singapore from July 1st to July 5th, 2013. During the conference, Dr. Zhang gave an invited talk entitled "The function of FGF13 in nerve system".
On Jul 1, 2013, Dr. Aike Guo’s research group published a research report online entitled "Transformation of odor selectivity from projection neurons to single mushroom body neurons mapped with dual-color calcium imaging" in the journal PNAS. The authors found a scaling relationship between the average synaptic strength of the PN terminals and the total number of PN terminals a single KC received.
On June 28, 2013, a research article entitled "Axon position within the corpus callosum determines contralateral cortical projection" was published online in PNAS. This work was mainly carried out by graduate student Jing Zhou under the supervision of Dr. Mu-ming Poo.
On June 26, 2013, The Journal of Neuroscience published online a research article entitled "Tlx3 Controls Cholinergic Transmitter and Peptide Phenotypes in a Subset of Prenatal Sympathetic Neurons". This work was mainly carried out by Tianwen Huang and Jia Hu, under the supervision of Dr. Leping Cheng.
On June 17th, 2013, a study from the Laboratory of Neural Signal Transduction at the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was published online in PNAS as a research article entitled "Canonical transient receptor potential 3 channels regulate mitochondrial calcium uptake".
Dr. Cheng-Yu Li was invited to attend Sino-German Frontiers of Science Symposium 2013 and visit Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Germany from May 19th to May 30th, 2013. During the syposium, Dr. Li gave an invited talk entitled "Optogenetics: a dream comes true for neuroscientists".
Dr. Xiao-Hui Zhang was invited to attend Workshop on Computational Neuroscience in New York University Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates from May 20th to May 23rd, 2013. During the workshop, Dr. Zhang gave an invited talk entitled "A simple arithmetic rule for integration of excitatory and inhibitory inputs in pyramidal neurons".
The 2013 ION Symposium on Frontier of Neuroscience was held at the SIBS Lecture Hall on May 11th, 2013. Prof. Liqun Luo (Stanford University), Prof. Naoshige Uchida(Harvard University), Prof. Marla Feller ( University of California, Berkeley), Prof. Li-Huei Tsai (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Prof. Scott Sternson (Janilia Farm Research Campus) and Prof. Robert Malenka (Stanford University) , all pioneers in neuroscience, presented exciting talks in the symposium.
The Cold Spring Harbor Asia conference entitled ‘Francis Crick Symposium on Neuroscience - The Changing Brain’ was held in Suzhou from May 6th to 10th, 2013. Yuanyuan Yao from Jiulin Du’s lab won the poster prize at this conference. Her study is“Dopaminergic gating of visual flow to audiomotor circuits via inhibition”.
On May 13, 2013, a study from the Laboratory of Neurobiology of Diseases at the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was published online in PNAS as a research article entitled “Palmitoylation-dependent CDKL5–PSD-95 interaction regulates synaptic targeting of CDKL5 and dendritic spine development”.
A recent study in monkeys showed that, in contrast to the classical view, motion information is processed in both the dorsal and ventral visual pathways, and possibly serves different purposes.This work was carried out by Peichao Li, Shude Zhu and others in Dr. Haidong Lu’s lab at the Institute of Neuroscience.
Drs. Zhen-Ge Luo and Jia-Wei Zhou were invited to attend the 90th annual meeting of The Physiological Society of Japan (PSJ) in Tokyo, Japan from March 26th to March 30th, 2013. During the meeting, Dr. Luo gave an invited talk entitled "Cholinergic activation of caspase-3 induces synaptic pruning during neuromuscular synapogenesis". Dr. Zhou gave an invited talk entitled "Suppression of neuroinflammation by astrocytic dopamine D2 receptors through an aB-crystallin-dependent mechanism".
Dr. Jiulin Du was invited to attend the Symposium - Novel developments in the study of life and biological systems based on genome engineering and imaging Science, which was organized by International Institute for Advanced Studies at Kyoto during February 21 – 27, 2013. Dr. Du gave an invited talk entitled “Dopaminergic gating of visual flow to auditory escape circuit via inhibition”. After the meeting, Dr. Du was invited to visit National Institute of Genetics at Mishima, Japan, and gave a talk entitled “The axon terminal of bipolar cells initiates glutamatergic retinal wave”.
Dr. Jiu-Lin Du was invited to attend IIAS Project in Japan from February 21st to February 25th, 2013. During the meeting, Dr. Du gave an invited talk entitled "Dopaminergic gating of visual flow to auditory escape circuit via inhibition".
Dr. Xiang Yu was invited to attend 2013 Australian Neurosicence Scoiety Annual Meeting from February 1st to February 7th, 2012. During the meeting, Dr. Yu gave an invited talk entitled “Global and crossmodal effects of environmental stimulation on neural circuit formation in the sensory cortices”.
On Jan 9th, 2013, a recent study from Dr. Mingsha Zhang’s lab at the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was published online in the Journal of Neuroscience. In this study, Dr. Zhang and his colleagues investigated the neuronal control of saccadic eye movements through recording single neuron’s activity from the posterior parietal cortex of non-human primates.
On Jan 2, 2013, Dr. Zhi-Qi Xiong’s research group at the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, published online a brief communication entitled “The Angelman syndrome protein Ube3a is required for polarized dendrite morphogenesis in pyramidal neurons” in the Journal of Neuroscience.
The 2012 ION Annual Meeting was held from December 26th to 28th, 2012. 64 members of ION, including graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and research associates, presented their recent works. New faculty members Drs. Yong Gu, Yi-Feng Zhang, Yan-Gang Sun and Xiao-Hong Xu introduced research directions of their laboratories.
A team led by Dr. ZHOU Jia-wei identified astrocytic dopamine D2 receptor (Drd2) as an important component of the neural network controlling innate immunity in the brain. They showed that astrocytic Drd2 tightly controls the expression of anti-inflammatory protein aB-crystallin (Cryab).
On December 3 to 5, 2012, Prof. Fred H. Gage from The the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, U.S.A., recipient of the 2012 Einstein Professorship of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, visited ION and gave two lectures.
Ph.D. students Ying Li and Yu Mu in Dr. Jiu-lin Du’s lab were invited to attend the 4th Shanghai Doctoral Forum of Life-Science, organized by Fudan University on Dec. 2nd.
On Nov. 29th, 2012, Dr. Jiulin Du’s research group at the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, published online a research article entitled “Reciprocal Regulation between Resting Microglial Dynamics and Neuronal Activity In Vivo” in Developmental Cell.
Dr. Hai-Lan Hu was invited to attend the 11th Pacific Neurochemistry Symposium and the 55th Japan Neurochemistry Conference in Kobe, Japan from September 28th to October 10th, 2012. During the conference, Dr. Hu gave an invited talk entitled "Neurobiology of social behavior".
On September 26, 2012, The Journal of Neuroscience published online a research article entitled " Distinct functional organizations for processing different motion signals in V1, V2, and V4 of macaque ". This work was carried out by Mr. Xu An (a visiting graduate student from USTC), assistant investigator Mr Gong Hongliang, and Dr. Wei Wang along with other colleagues in Dr. Wang’s Lab at ION, CAS.
On May 16, 2012, The Journal of Neuroscience published online a research article entitled "Equivalent representation of real and illusory contours in macaque V4" and highlighted this article at "This Week in The Journal". This work was mainly carried out by graduate student Mr. Yanxia Pan and his supervisor Dr. Wei Wang and colleagues.
On September 26, 2012, The Journal of Neuroscience published online a research article entitled " Distinct functional organizations for processing different motion signals in V1, V2, and V4 of macaque ". This work was carried out by Mr. Xu An (a visiting graduate student from USTC), assistant investigator Mr Gong Hongliang, and Dr. Wei Wang along with other colleagues in Dr. Wang’s Lab at ION, CAS.
Ph.D. student Qi Chen in Dr. Jiu-lin Du’s lab was invited to attend the 7th International Kloster Seeon angiogenesis meeting, which was held in Germany during September 14th-18th, 2012. During the meeting, Qi Chen gave an invited talk entitled "Haemodynamics-driven developmental pruning of brain vasculature in zebrafish". This work won the 1st prize for poster presentation in the meeting and previously highlighted by Nature (2012, 488:560).
Dr. Xiang Yu was invited to attend the 35th Japan Neuroscience Annual Meeting from September 17th to September 22nd, 2012. During the meeting, Dr. Yu gave an invited talk entitled "Function of the cadherin/catenin cell adhesion complex during dendrite development and neural circuit formation".
Dr. Hai-Lan Hu was invited to attend the 14th International Congress of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry in Kyoto, Japan from August 23rd to August 30th, 2012. During the congress, Dr. Hu gave an invited talk entitled "Neurobiology of social behavior".
On August 23, 2012, Prof. Aike Guo's research group at the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, published a research article entitled "A GABAergic inhibitory neural circuit regulates visual reversal learning in Drosophila" in the Journal of Neuroscience.
On August 23, 2012, Neuron published a research article entitled "Visual Input Modulates Audiomotor Function Via Hypothalamic Dopaminergic Neurons Through A Cooperative Mechanism". This work was carried out by graduate students Yu Mu and Xiao-quan Li, under the supervision of Dr. Jiu-lin Du.
On Aug 14, 2012, Dr. Jiu-lin Du’s research group at the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, published a research article entitled "Haemodynamics-Driven Developmental Pruning of Brain Vasculature in Zebrafish" in PLoS BIOLOGY. This work was also highlighted by SYNOPSES in the current issue of the journal.
On August 09, 2012, Dr. Jiu-lin Du’s research group at the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, published a research article entitled “Activity-Induced Long-Term Potentiation of Excitatory Synapses in Developing Zebrafish Retina In Vivo” in Neuron. This work was mainly carried out by graduate student Hongping Wei and colleagues, under the supervision of Dr. Jiu-lin Du.
Dr. Ming-Sha Zhang was invited to attend the 8th FENS Forum of Neuroscience in Spain from July 13th to July 19th, 2012. During the conference, Dr. Zhang gave an invited talk entitled "Baseline activity in the parietal cortex reflects intrinsic fluctuations in motivation".
Dr. Jin Xu was invited to attend the Life Science Institute Neurobiology/Aging Program at the National University of Singapore from July 10th to July 15th, 2012. During the program, Dr. Xu gave an invited talk entitled "Oxidative stress, post-translational modification and neurodegenerative diseases".
On July 4, 2012, Dr. Yizheng Wang’s research group at the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, published a research article entitled “TRPC5 channel is the mediator of Neurotrophin-3 in regulating dendritic growth via CaMKIIa in rat hippocampal neurons” in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Dr. Zhi-Qi Xiong was invited to attend CDKL5 Symposium to be held in conjunction with the Rett World Congress in New Orleans, U.S.A. from June23rd to June 28th, 2012. During the symposium, Dr. Xiong gave an invited talk entitled "Molecular basis of CDKL5 disorder".
Dr. Jia-Wei Zhou was invited to attend the Stepping Stone Symposium to be held in Switzerland from June 18th to June 25th, 2012. During the symposium, Dr. Zhou gave an invited talk entitled "Suppression of neuro-inflammation by astrocytic dopamine D2 receptors via alphaB-crystallin".
Dr. Zhen-Ge Luo was invited to attend the Gordon Research Conference “Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology” to be held at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology from June 16th to June 23rd , 2012. During the conference, Dr. Luo gave an invited talk entitled "Membrane trafficking mechanism underlying neuronal polarization".
On June 22, 2012, Cell published a research article entitled “Fibroblast growth factor 13 is a microtubule-stabilizing protein regulating neuronal polarization and migration”. This work was carried out by graduate students Qing-Feng Wu, Liu Yang and their colleagues, under the supervision of Prof. Xu Zhang.
Dr. Xu Zhang was invited to attend the second CMU-KI Symposium at Karolinska Institute in Sweden from May 30th to June 1st, 2012. During the symposium, Dr. Zhang gave an invited talk entitled "FGF13 in brain development".
On June 20, 2012, The Journal of Neuroscience published online a research article entitled "Tlx1/3 and Ptf1a control the expression of distinct sets of transmitter and peptide receptor genes in the developing dorsal spinal cord".
Dr. Jia-Wei Zhou was invited to visit Department of Neuropathology, University of Tuebingen, Germany from June 11th to June 17th, 2012. During the visit, Dr. Zhou gave an invited talk entitled "Suppression of neuro-inflammation by astrocytic dopamine D2 receptors via alphaB-crystallin".
On June 13, 2012, Dr. Mingsha Zhang’s lab reported how spatial information from egocentric and allocentric coordinates interacted with each other during spatial perception. This study, entitled as "Asymmetric influence of egocentric representation onto allocentric perception", was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Academy of Finland visited ION on June 13, 2012. Members included Dr. Riitta Mustonen, Prof. Tuula Tamminen, Prof. Jan Mikael Knip, Prof. Johanna Myllyharju, Dr. Jan-Erick Jarmo Wahlfors, and Dr. Mika Tirronen. Dr. Zuo-Ren Wang hosted their visit and gave a brief introduction of ION. After the introduction and discussion with Dr. Zuo-Ren Wang, the delegation visited Optical Imaging Facility in ION.
During May 21-23, the 5th Academic Review of ION PIs and the 6th International Advisory Board Meeting were held in Shanghai.After listening to the presentations of the PIs and having lunch with their graduate students, the reviewers held a close-door discussion.
On May 16, 2012, The Journal of Neuroscience published online a research article entitled "Equivalent representation of real and illusory contours in macaque V4" and highlighted this article at "This Week in The Journal". This work was mainly carried out by graduate student Mr. Yanxia Pan and his supervisor Dr. Wei Wang and colleagues.
On May 8, 2012, PLoS Biology published online a research article entitled "Enhancement of asynchronous release from fast-spiking interneuron in human and rat epileptic neocortex". This work was carried out by graduate student Man Jiang under the supervision of Dr. Yousheng Shu, in collaboration with Dr. Kaiyan Wang at Shanghai Huashan Hospital of Fudan University and Dr. Hui Guo at Shanghai Quyang Hospital of Tongji University.
Dr. Jia-Wei Zhou was invited to attend 2012 International Brain Research Symposium in Daegu, Korea from May 1st to May 5th, 2012. During the symposium, Dr. Zhou gave an invited talk entitled "Suppression of neuro-inflammation by astrocytic dopamine D2 receptors via alphaB-crystallin".
On Apr. 18, 2012, The Journal of Neuroscience published online a research article entitled "c-Maf Is Required for the Development of Dorsal Horn Laminae III/IV Neurons and Mechanoreceptive DRG Axon Projections". This work was mainly carried out by graduate students Jia Hu and Tianwen Huang, under the supervision of Dr. Leping Cheng.
On Jan. 24, 2012, Brain published online a research article entitled "Activin C expressed in nociceptive afferent neurons is required for suppressing inflammatory pain". This work was carried out by postdoc Xing-Jun Liu and colleagues, under the supervision of Prof. Xu Zhang. Activin C functions as an endogenous suppressor of inflammatory nociceptive transmission and may have therapeutic potential for treatment of inflammatory pain.
Dr. Zhi-Qi Xiong was invited to attend The 1st Symposium of Frontiers in Biomedical Researches on Marmosets as a Primate Model held in Tokyo, Japan from February 19 to February 25, 2012. During the symposium, Dr. Xiong gave an invited talk entitled "Shanghai marmoset center for brain disorder."
From Feb. 14 to 23, ION Mini-Course on "Scientific Pursuit, Communication, and Integrity" was offered in the SIBS main lecture hall by Profs. Mu-ming Poo (ION) and Chun-Fang Wu (University of Iowa). Five lectures entitled "Scientific pursuit: personal and historical perspectives", "Presentation and publication: skills and procedures", "Scientific misconducts: FFP & gray zone problems", "Scientific integrity: communication, collaboration & competition", "Becoming a successful scientist: retrospectives and prospectives".
On Jan. 22, 2012, Nature Neuroscience published online a research article entitled “Activity recall in a visual cortical ensemble”. This work was carried out by graduate students Sheng-jin Xu and Wan-chen Jiang in the laboratory of Neural Plasticity, under the supervision of Prof. Mu-ming Poo and a guest investigator Prof. Yang Dan from University of California, Berkeley.
Drs. Xiao-Hui Zhang and Jiu-Lin Du were invited to attend The 11th Japan-Korea-China Joint Workshop on Neurobiology and Neuroinformatics (NBNI2011) held at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan from December 17 to December 20, 2011. During the workshop, Drs. Zhang and Du gave invited talks entitled "Neuronal integration of excitatory and inhibitory inputs" and "Visual modulation of audiomotor response via hypothalamic dopaminergic neurons in zebrafish", respectively.
During the 2012 Chinese Academy of Sciences Annual Meeting on January 18, 2012, Research Group for Neural Development and Plasticity from ION was awarded the 2011 Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement Prize of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The 2011 ION Annual Meeting was held at the SIBS Lecture Hall from December 27th to 29th, 2011. 64 members of ION, including graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and research associates presented their recent works. Drs. Zheng Wang and Yong Gu, new faculty members at ION, introduced their laboratories.
On Dec 11, 2011, Nature Neuroscience published online a full original article from Dr. Zhi-Qi Xiong’s laboratory entitled “Neuregulin 1 represses limbic epileptogenesis through ErbB4 in parvalbumin-expressing interneurons”. This work was carried out by graduate students Guo-He Tan and Yuan-Yuan Liu etc, in collaboration with Dr. Lin Mei’s laboratory from Georgia Health Sciences University.
The ION-NIMH Joint Neuroscience Symposium was held on Nov. 17th and 18th, 2011 at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Besthesda, Maryland, U.S.A. The symposium aimed to provide an opportunity for faculty, students and postdoctoral fellows from both institutions to present and discuss their latest research progress and to identify potential areas of future collaboration.
Dr. Jin Xu was invited to visit UCL Institute of Neurology in London U.K. from Oct 23rd to Oct 30th, 2011. During the visit, Dr. Xu gave an invited talk entitled "Transcriptional Regulation, Oxidation and Parkinson’s disease."
On October 16th to 17th, the 9th IASP Research Symposium “Understanding mechanism of chronic pain” was held at the Institute of Neuroscience (ION). This Symposium was organized by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), Institute of Neuroscience (ION), Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences (SIBS), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Chinese Neuroscience Society (CNS) and The Shanghai Society for Neuroscience (SSN).
Dr. Zuo-Ren Wang was invited to attend the 45th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Association for the Study of Taste and Smell (JASTS) held in Kanazawa, Japan from October 4th to October 8th, 2011. During the conference, Dr. Wang gave an invited talk entitled "Projection Neurons contribute to Inter-Glomeluri Crosstalk in Dropsophila Antennal Lobes."
Dr. Xu Zhang was invited to attend American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) special symposium in U.S.A. from September 26th to October 3rd, 2011. During the conference, Dr. Zhang gave an invited talk entitled "Follistatin-Like 1 suppresses sensory afferent transmission by activating Na+, K+-ATPase."
On Sept 29, 2011, Dr. Hailan Hu’s research group at the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, published a research report entitled " Bidirectional control of social hierarchy by synaptic efficacy in medial prefrontal cortex " in the journal Science as Advance Online publication.
Dr. Xiao-Bing Yuan was invited to attend the 34th Neuroscience Annual Meeting held at the Conference Center in Osaka, Japan from September 11th to September 19th, 2011. During the conference, Dr. Yuan gave an invited talk entitled "Traction of neuronal migration by polarized adhesion".
On September 14 to 15, 2011, Prof. Martin Heisenberg from the University of Würzburg, recipient of the 2011 Einstein Professorship of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, visited ION and gave a lecture entitled “The Fly Drosophila - its Brain and its Self”.
On Aug. 18, Developmental Cell published online a paper entitled “Lgl1 Activation of Rab10 Promotes Axonal Membrane Trafficking Underlying Neuronal Polarization”. This work was carried out by Dr. Zhen-Ge Luo's laboratory at ION.
Recently, The Ministry of Science and Technology announced: our State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience passed the review and was evaluated as one of nine "Excellent Laboratories".
Dr. Xu Zhang was invited to attend the 2nd Seoul Pain Symposium in Korea from June 15th to June 18th, 2011. During the conference, Dr. Zhang gave an invited talk entitled "Presynaptic inhibitory regulation of nociceptive afferent transmission."
The Functional Genomics Unit (FGU) of the Medical Research Council (MRC), U.K., visited ION on June 16, 2011. Dr. Zhi-Qi Xiong hosted their visit and gave a brief description of current research at ION.
On May 30th to 31st, the Chinese Russian Workshop on Neuroscience was held at the State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience.
Dr. Xiao-Bing Yuan was invited to attend the International Cortical Development Meeting held at Greece from May 19th to May 22nd, 2011.
On May 24th, 2011, Dr. Zhen-Ge Luo (Institute of Neuroscience, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, CAS) was awarded the 8th Shanghai Peony Award for his research on the molecular mechanisms underlying neuronal polarization and synapse formation.
Dr. Yi-Zheng Wang was invited to visit the School of Biomedical Sciences at Chinese University of Hong Kong from May 5th to May 8th, 2011.
Dr. Hai-Lan Hu was invited to attend the Sino-German Frontiers of Science Symposium held at the Berlin from April 27th to 30th, 2011.
On March 22, PLoS Biology published a study entitled "Membrane Potential-Dependent Modulation of Recurrent Inhibition in Rat Neocortex". This work was carried out by Jie Zhu and her colleagues, under the supervision of Dr. Yousheng Shu.
On March 10, Neuron published a research article entitled "Follistatin-like 1 suppresses sensory afferent transmission by activating Na+, K+-ATPase". This work was carried out by Dr. Xu Zhang's laboratory at ION.
On March 2, 2011, The Journal of Neuroscience published a research article from ION entitled "Post-induction requirement of NMDA receptor activation for late-phase long-term potentiation of developing retinotectal synapses in vivo".
On February 9, a research article on ASIC1a channels was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. This work was carried out by Dr. Bo Duan and Ph.D candidate Yi-Zhi Wang, under the supervision of Dr. Tian-Le Xu.
On January 26, 2011, a Danish Delegation from Aarhus University visited ION. Dr. Jia-Wei Zhou, Deputy Director of SKLN, hosted their visit and gave a brief description of current research at ION.
On January 14th, 2011, Prof. Yong-Xiang Lu, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, sent a congratulatory letter to ION on our research finding “New roles of glial cells” receiving a Second Prize in the 2010 National Science Award.
On Jan. 13th, Neuron published a research article entitled "Facilitation of μ-opioid receptor activity by preventing δ-opioid receptor-mediated co-degradation". This work was carried out by Dr. Xu Zhang's lab (ION), in collaboration with Dr. Lan Bao's lab (IBCB).
On January 10, 2011, a delegation from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) visited ION. Drs. Zuo-Ren Wang and You-Sheng Shu hosted the visit, giving a brief description of current research and activities at ION.
The 2010 ION-IBP-IOBS-ZUSM Joint Annual Meeting, between ION, IBP (Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences), IOBS (Institute of Brain Sciences, Fudan University) and ZUSM (Zhejiang University School of Medicine) was held at the SIBS Lecture Hall from December 26th to 28th.
Dr. Hai-Lan Hu was invited to attend the Conference on Synaptic Plasticity as a basis of Learning and Memory held in Japan on December 1 to 3. During the conference, Dr. Hu gave an invited talk entitled "In search of the Molecular and Circuit Mechanism of Depression".
On Dec 1st, an article from the Lab of Dendrite Development and Neural Circuit Formation was published as a cover article in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Dr. Si Wu was invited to attend the Australian Workshop on Computational Neuroscience held at the University of Queensland on November 4th to 5th. During the conference, Dr. Wu gave an invited talk entitled "Computation with Dynamical Synapses".
The opening ceremony of 12th CAST Annual Meeting took place in Fuzhou, capital city of Fujian Province, on November 1st, 2010. Prof. Mu-Ming Poo, together with two other scientists, received the 2010 Qiushi Excellent Scientist Award.
From October 18th to 21st, ION held Section Review for its 973 Program "Plasticity in Brain Structure and Function" in Hangzhou. Following presentations, the reviewers scored all Sections and provided thoughtful comments.
Dr. Xiao-Bing Yuan was invited to attend the 10th Biennial Meeting of the Asian Pacific Society for NeuroChemistry held in Thailand on October 17th to 20th. During the conference, Dr. Yuan gave an invited talk entitled "Leading tip drives soma translocation via forward F-actin flow during neuronal migration".
On October 7th, a research article entitled “A Nonproton Ligand Sensor in the Acid-Sensing Ion Channel” was published in Neuron. This work was carried out by Dr. Tian-Le Xu’s lab at ION and Dr. Hua-Liang Jiang’s lab at the SIMM.
On September 22, a research article from Dr. Zhi-Qi Xiong’s laboratory entitled “CDKL5, a protein associated with Rett syndrome, regulates neuronal morphogenesis via Rac1 signaling” was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. This work was carried out by graduate students Qian Chen and Yong-Chuan Zhu.
On September 23, 2010, Neuron published a research article from Zuoren Wang’s Laboratory entitled “Functional Connectivity and Selective Odor Responses of Excitatory Local Interneurons in Drosophila Antennal Lobe”.
On September 1st, 2010, a research article from ION entitled "Inhibition of TRPC6 Degradation Suppresses Ischemic Brain Damage in Rats" was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
On August 26, 2010, a delegation from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) visited ION, accompanied by Prof. Zhi-Yuan Zhu (Vice President of Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai Branch) and Mr. Jian-Xin Zhang (Vice President of SIBS).
On Aug. 19, the Journal of Neuroscience published a research article from ION entitled "Nuclear Factor kappa B Controls Acetylcholine Receptor Clustering at the Neuromuscular Junction".
On Aug. 11, the Journal of Neuroscience published a research article from ION entitled "Leading Tip Drives Soma Translocation via Forward F-Actin Flow during Neuronal Migration".
On August 12, 2010, Prof. Chun-Li Bai, Vice President of Chinese Academy of Sciences, visited the Laboratory of Visual Perceptual Mechanisms, Institute of Neuroscience. Dr. Wei Wang introduced his research interests and recent findings to Prof. Bai.
On August 12, 2010, the Institute of Neural Systems and Information Networks Delegation from Japan visited ION.
On August 11, a research article from ION entitled "Inhibition of inflammatory pain by activating B-type natriuretic peptide signal pathway in nociceptive sensory neurons" was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Dr. Tian-Le Xu was invited to attend the conference "From Molecules to Neuronal Diseases" held in Bristol, UK on June 29th to July 1st. During the conference, Dr. Xu gave an invited talk entitled "Activation and sensitization of acid-sensing ion channels by a non-proton ligand".
Dr. You-Sheng Shu was invited to attend the International Neural Microcircuitry Conference "Signal Processing Mechanisms of Cortical Neurons" held in Okinawa, Japan on June 24th to 27th and "Microcuitry of Cortex" held in Tokyo, Japan on June 29th to 30th.
On June 30th, a review meeting for the Open Access Program of the State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience (SKLN) was held at ION. The reviewing committee, as well as researchers participating in collaborative projects through the Open Access Program and their ION host PIs, attended this meeting.
On June 16th, 2010, a research article from the Lab of Neural Signal Transduction entitled "Essential role of TRPC6 channels in G2/M phase transition and development of human glioma" was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
On June 9, 2010, a research article from the Lab of Dendrite Development and Neural Circuit Formation was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. This work was carried out by Shan He and Dr. Jun Ma under the supervision of
From May 30th to June 2nd, ION held a retreat for its 973 Program "Plasticity in Brain Structure and Function" in Xiamen. Fifteen PIs in the program presented their research progress during the retreat.
On June 1, 2010, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA published a research article from ION entitled "Functional feedback from mushroom bodies to antennal lobes in the Drosophila olfactory pathway".
On May 26, a research paper from the Lab of Dendrite Development and Neural Circuit Formation entitled "N-cadherin-dependent neuron - neuron interaction is required for the maintenance of activity-induced dendrite growth" was published in the PNAS.
Dr. Tian-Le Xu was invited to attend the 87th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Physiological Society held in Japan on May 19th to 21th. During the conference, Dr. Xu gave an invited talk entitled "pH sensing and pain".
During May 19-21, the 4th Academic Review of ION PIs, the 5th International Advisory Board Meeting and the Shanghai Symposium on "Frontier of Neuroscience" were held in Shanghai
On May 5, 2010, the Journal of Neuroscience published research from the Laboratory of Neural Circuits and Animal Behavior at ION entitled "The Amiloride-Sensitive Epithelial Na+ Channel PPK28 Is Essential for Drosophila Gustatory Water Reception".
The 2010 Shanghai Symposium on Frontiers of Neuroscience was held at the SIBS Lecture Hall on April 18th. Ten professors gave exciting talks on topics ranging from molecular to systems neuroscience.
On April 8, Prof. James Watson, Emeritus President of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Nobel Laureate and co-discoverer of the DNA double helix, visited ION. Prof. Mu-Ming Poo hosted his visit, and together with some ION faculty members, held a discussion with Prof. Watson on recent progress in neuroscience research.
The Second Academic Committee Meeting of the State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience (SKLN) was held at the Institute of Neuroscience on March 19th, 2010.
On Feb 25, 2010, Circulation Research published online a research article from ION entitled "TRPC1 is Essential for In Vivo Angiogenesis in Zebrafish". This work was carried out by Peng-chun Yu, Shan-ye Gu and Ji-wen Bu from the laboratory of Dr. Jiu-lin Du.
On Feb 3, 2010, the Journal of Neuroscience published a research article from ION entitled "Synaptic Mechanisms of Direction Selectivity in Primary Auditory Cortex".
On January 27, 2010, the Journal of Neuroscience published a research article entitled "Expression of β-Amyloid Induced Age-Dependent Presynaptic and Axonal Changes in Drosophila". This paper is highlighted in "This Week in The Journal".
On Dec 16, 2009, the Journal of Neuroscience published a full research article from ION entitled "GABA Transporter-1 Activity Modulates Hippocampal Theta Oscillation and Theta Burst Stimulation-Induced Long-Term Potentiation".
An ION Council was held on December 5 in Shanghai. Council members, including Profs. Jian-Guo Hou, Qi-Shui Lin, Gang Pei, Mu-Ming Poo, Xian-En Zhang, Zhi-Bing Zhang and Zuo-Yan Zhu attended the meeting. Mr. Jian-Xin Zhang, Mrs. Li-Ping Wang and Mrs. Feng Zhang also attended this meeting.
On Nov 24, 2009, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published online a research article from ION entitled "PKCδ Regulates Cortical Radial Migration by Stabilizing the Cdk5 Activator P35".
As part of a major drive for excellence in basic research in the new millennium, the Chinese Academy of Sciences founded the Institute of Neuroscience (ION) on November 27, 1999. Today is the 10 years old birthday of ION, we hope our institute will be better and better in the future.
On November 11, 2009, a delegation from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology Delegation from Korea visited ION. Drs. Shu-Min Duan, Zhen-Ge Luo and Xiang Yu hosted their visit, and Dr. Xiang Yu gave a brief description of current research at ION.
On Oct 21, 2009, the Journal of Neuroscience published a full research article from ION entitled "Endocannabinoid-Dependent Homeostatic Regulation of Inhibitory Synapses by Miniature Excitatory Synaptic Activities".
The 2009 ION-NPAS-HKUST-NIMH Joint "Symposium on Frontiers in Neuroscience", between ION, NPAS, HKUST and NIMH was held at the SIBS Lecture Hall from September 24th to 27th. From September 25th to 27th, 35 faculty members presented their recent works.
In September 2009, the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced the awardees of the 2009 CAS Scholarships. Eight ION students were recipients of these scholarships.
Dr. Chen-Bing Guan's Ph.D. thesis was selected by the Ministry of Education of China as the 2009 Top 100 Ph.D. Thesis in China.
On September 9, 2009, the Journal of Neuroscience published a research article entitled "The spatiotemporal frequency tuning of LGN receptive field facilitates neural discrimination of natural stimuli". This work was carried out by Zhongchao Tan from the laboratory of Dr. Hai-shan Yao at ION.
On September 8, 2009, Professor Bruce Alberts from the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, and Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine, visited ION. Prof. Alberts has served two six-year terms as the President of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Hai-Lan Hu was invited to attend the 22nd Biennial Meeting of the ISN/APSN Joint Meeting held in Korea on August 23rd to 28th.
On August 26, 2009, a research paper entitled "MSC p43 Required for Axonal Development in Motor Neurons" from Dr. Jiawei Zhou's laboratory at the Institute of Neuroscience, was published online in Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA.
Dr. Shu-Min Duan was invited to attend the 9th ISN Advanced School of Neurochemistry held in Korea on August 19th to 23rd. During the school, Dr. Duan gave an invited lecture entitled "Purine-mediated signaling in glial cells".
Nature Neuroscience published a cover story research article entitled "Distinct contributions of Nav1.6 and Nav1.2 in action potential initiation and backpropagation" on July 26, 2009. This study was carried out by Wenqin Hu and others from the laboratory of Dr. Yousheng Shu at the Institute of Neuroscience, and was highlighted in a News and Views article authored by Dulla and Huguenard.
Dr. Tian-Le Xu was invited to attend the 4th International Conference for Neurons and Brain Disease held in Canada on July 19th to 26th.
Dr. Shu-Min Duan was invited to attend the International Symposium on Purinergic Signalling in New Strategy of Drug and Discovery held in Japan on July 23rd to 25th.
Dr. You-Sheng Shu was invited to attend the Kyoto University International Symposium "Cellular Approaches to Neuronal Signal Processing" held in Japan on July 23rd to 24th.
On July 13, 2009, the Journal of Cell Biology published a research article from the Institute of Neuroscience entitled "Ca2+ signaling evoked by activation of Na+ channels and Na+/Ca2+ exchangers is required for GABA-induced NG2 cell migration". This work was carried out by Xiao-ping Tong with other graduate students from the laboratory of Dr. Shumin Duan. The paper was highlighted in the ‘News in this issue’ section, with a short introduction entitled "Brain-repairing cells follow trail of GABA".
Drs. Ai-Ke Guo, Shu-Min Duan, Yi-Zheng Wang and Zhen-Ge Luo were invited to attend the Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America's 12th International Symposium, held in the Taiwan on June 14 to June 18. During the symposium, Drs. Ai-Ke Guo, Shu-Min Duan, Yi-Zheng Wang and Zhen-Ge Luo gave invited talks.
On June 17, 2009, the Journal of Neuroscience published a research article entitled "Activation of phosphatidylinositol-linked D1-like receptor modulates FGF-2 expression in astrocytes via IP3-dependent Ca2+ signaling". This work was carried out by Xin-hua Zhang, Zheng Zhou and other co-workers from the laboratory of Dr. Jia-wei Zhou at ION, in close collaboration with Dr. Xue-chu Zhen at Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica.
Drs. Mu-Ming Poo, Ai-Ke Guo and Shu-Min Duan were invited to attend the 25th Anniversary Conference held in the City University of Hong Kong on June 16. During the conference, Drs. Mu-Ming Poo, Ai-Ke Guo and Shu-Min Duan gave invited talks.
On May 25 to 29, 2009, Prof. Charles Stevens from the Salk Institute, recipient of the Einstein Professorship of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, visited ION. During his visit, Prof. Stevens visited every ION laboratory and talked with faculty members, as well as some post-doctoral fellows and Ph.D. students.
Dr. Hai-Dong Lu was invited to attend the 9th Annual Vision Sciences Society Meeting held in Naples, USA on May 8th to 13th. During the conference, Dr. Lu gave an invited talk entitled "Motion processing in the ventral pathway: evidence for direction maps in macaque V2 and V4".
On May 6th, 2009, Prof. Yong-Xiang Lu, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, sent a letter to Prof. Mu-Ming Poo congratulating him on becoming a member of National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
On May 6, 2009, the Journal of Neuroscience published a research article from ION entitled "Entrainment of Slow Oscillations of Auditory Thalamic Neurons by Repetitive Sound Stimuli”. This work was carried out by Li-xia Gao, Xian-kai Meng, Chang-quan Ye Chun Xu and other graduate students from the laboratories of Drs. Xiao-hui Zhang and Mu-ming Poo at ION as well as the laboratory of Professor Ju-fang He at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
On April 28th, the First Council Meeting of the Hsiang-Tung Chang Foundation was held at ION. The meeting was chaired by Prof. Mu-Ming Poo, and all the other council members including Prof. Chien-Ping Wu, Prof. Yi-Zhang Chen, Prof. Shu-Min Duan, Prof. Zhi-Qi Zhao, Mrs. Shu-Fang He and Mrs. Shu-Min Zhang attended the meeting.
A research paper entitled “Ventral Mesencephalon-Enriched Genes that Regulate the Development of Dopaminergic Neurons in Vivo” from Dr. Jiawei Zhou’s laboratory at the Institute of Neuroscience was published in the Journal of Neuroscience on April 22, 2009. In this paper, the authors illustrated genetic pathways that control mesodiencephalic dopaminergic (mDA) neuron differentiation during development.
On April 11, 2009 Dr. Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), NIH, USA visited ION. Accompanying him were Dr. Richard Nakamura, Scientific Director of NIMH and Dr. Bai Lu, Associate Director of Molecular Neurobiology, GCAP, NIMH. They met with ION faculty members in the morning, introducing the institutes to each other and exchanging ideas about future collaborations.
Dr. Xiao-Bing Yuan was invited to attend the Neurochemistry Winter Conference held in Solden, Austria on March 31st to April 4th. During the conference, Dr. Yuan gave an invited talk entitled "Guidance of cortical radial migration by gradients of diffusible factors".
A symposium on molecular neuroscience was held at the Institute of Neuroscience on March 26th, 2009. During the symposium, Dr. Aaron Hsueh from Stanford University, Dr. Zhi-Gang He from Harvard University, Drs. Guo-Ping Feng and Fan Wang from Duke University, Dr. Qiang Sun from East China Normal University, Drs. Mu-Ming Poo, Shu-Min Duan, Tian-Le Xu, Zhen-Ge Luo and Zhi-Qi Xiong from ION presented their recent works.
Institute of Neuroscience (ION) and the Shanghai Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) invited Prof. Kozo Kaibuchi from the Department of Cell Pharmacology at Nagoya University in Japan to visit ION on March 20, 2009. During his stay, Prof. Kaibuchi visited several ION laboratories, had lunch with some ION students and gave a talk entitled "Axon formation and polarized transport". More than one hundred researchers attended the lecture.
Dr. Shu-Min Duan was invited to attend the Gordon Research Conference on "Glial biology: functional interactions among glia and neurons" held in Ventura, California, USA on March 15th to 20th. During the conference, Dr. Duan gave an invited talk entitled "Astrocytes Release ATP from Lysosomes in a Regulated Fashion".
Jointly supervised by Dr. Mu-ming Poo and Dr. Shu-min Duan, Ai-hong Song and others found that an ankyrin G- and F-actin-dependent structure emerges in the cytoplasm of the axon initial segment (AIS) within 2 days of axonal / dendritic differentiation, imposing a selective filter for diffusion of macromolecules and for transport of vesicular carriers into the axon.
Published in the February 25th issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, work from the Laboratory of Neurobiology of Disease, reported that the CREB co-activator TORC1 regulates activity-dependent CREB–target gene transcription and dendritic growth in developing cortical neurons.
In the January 15th issue of Neuron, work from the Laboratory of Dendritic Development and Neural Circuit Formation, mainly carried out by graduate students Yi-Rong Peng and Shan He under the supervision of Dr. Xiang Yu, in collaboration with the Professor Robert Malenka at Stanford University, identified coordinated and inversely correlated changes in dendritic morphology and unitary excitatory synaptic strength (mEPSC amplitude) following increased neural activity.
Regular ION affairs are administered by committees composed of and chaired by ION faculty members. The functions and members of 2009 are detailed below.
The symposium on "Scientific Education in Primary and Middle Schools" was held in Shanghai on January 10, 2009. It was sponsored by the Education and Science Society (ESS), Institute of Neuroscience (ION), Shanghai Institute of Educational Science and Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences.
During January 5-7, the 2008 Symposium on "Frontier of Cellular Neurobiology" was held at Sanya, Hainan Province. It was sponsored by the Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience and the Cellular Neurobiology Section of the Chinese Society for Cell Biology.
The 2008 ION-IGDB Joint Annual Meeting between ION and IGDB (Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, CAS) was held at the SIBS lecture hall from December 26th to 28th. Following the traditional Director's Report from Prof. Mu-Ming Poo, in which he overviewed ION progress over the past year and discussed important factors in selecting good research projects, faculty members, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students from 22 ION laboratories and 9 IGDB laboratories presented their recent work. Faculty, staff and students exchanged ideas and talked about potential future collaborations during this annual meeting.
The 2008 ION-IGDB Joint Annual Meeting will be held on December 26-28, 2008 in the SIBS Main Lecture Hall at 320 Yue-Yang Road. Members of ION laboratories and invited PIs and students from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of CAS, Beijing will present some of their recent research progress. The meeting is open to the scientific community, although onsite registration (free of charge) is required.
Dr. Xu Zhang was invited to attend the Hillarp Family Reunion Conference held in Stockholm, Sweden, from December 3rd to 5th. During the conference, Dr. Zhang gave an invited talk entitled "Large dense-core vesicle, a carrier of receptor-signaling molecule complexes".
The first meeting of the Third ION Council was held at ION on November 29. After listening to reports by the directors of ION and the State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience (SKLN), council members met in closed session and gave recommendations for the future development of ION and SKLN.
On October 29, 2008, Prof. Olaf B. Paulson (Copenhagen University Hospitals – Rigshospitalet, Denmark) and Prof. Maurice Ptito (University of Montreal, Canada) visited ION. Dr. Si Wu hosted their visit and gave a brief description of current research at ION.
On October 29, 2008, the Science Deans Delegation of the United States visited ION. Prof. Mu-Ming Poo, Director of ION, hosted their visit and gave a brief description of current research at ION.
On Oct 26, 2008, Nature Neuroscience published online a full original article from ION entitled "GABAB receptor activation mediates frequency-dependent plasticity of developing GABAergic synapses". This work was carried out by Chun Xu and Man-xia Zhao, under the supervision of Drs. Mu-ming Poo and Xiao-hui Zhang.
On Oct. 28, PNAS published online a paper from ION entitled “TrkB-mediated Activation of Geranylgeranyltransferase I Promotes Dendritic Morphogenesis”. This work was mainly done by graduate student Xiu-Ping Zhou, under the supervision of Dr. Zhen-Ge Luo.
Prof. Zhi-Bin Zhang, Director of the Bureau of Life Science & Biotechnology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, visited ION on October 17, accompanied by Prof. Jian-Xin Zhang (Party Secretary of SIBS), Prof. Xu Zhang (Deputy Director of SIBS), Mr. Fu-Di Ni (Assistant Director of SIBS) and Mr. Jin-Hua Zhang (Scientific Program Office of SIBS).
On October 8th, 2008, a delegation from Wyeth Research visited ION. Delegation members included Drs. Frank Walsh (Executive Vice President, Wyeth Research), Gino Toffano and Soren Andersen.
On September 22nd, 2008, a delegation from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore, visited ION. Following a brief description of current research at ION from Dr. Shu-Min Duan, the delegation members visited the Two-Photon Microscopy Laboratory.
On September 17th, 2008, a delegation from the Toulouse Institute for Brain Science in France, visited ION. Delegation members included Prof. Pier-Giorgio Zanone, Michele Fabre-Thorpe, Yves Trotter and Dr. Jeanne Leung-Tack, et al.
On September 9th, 2008, a delegation consisting of Dr. Kim Yong Hyun and colleagues from the Daegu-Gyeongbuk Development Institute in Korea visited ION.
An ION Retreat was held at Tianmu Lake in Jiangsu Province on August 16th and 17th. The meeting was chaired by our director, Prof. Mu-Ming Poo and attended by all ION faculties and some secretaries.
Dr. Xu Zhang was invited to attend the 3rd International Conference for Neurons and Brain Diseases held in Seoul, Korea on August 5th to 7th. During the conference, Dr. Zhang gave an invited talk entitled "Function of fibroblast growth factor 13 in dorsal root ganglion neurons." Three Ph.D. students and two postdoctoral fellows from ION also attended this conference and present their recent findings.
In August 2008, the Chinese Academy of Sciences announced the awardees of the 2008 CAS Scholarships. Eleven ION students were recipients of these Scholarships.
Dr. Shu-Min Duan was invited to attend the 2008 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Research Conference on "Glia in Health and Disease" held in USA on July 17th to 21st and chaired the session entitled "Astrocyte Function at Synapses".
Dr. Xu Zhang was invited to attend the 3rd Asian Pain Symposium held in Fokuoka, Japan on July 18th to 19th and chaired the Symposium "Molecular mechanisms of pain transmission in the spinal cord". Dr. Zhang also gave an invited talk entitled "Mechanisms for inhibitory regulation of sensory afferent synaptic transmission in the dorsal spinal cord".
Dr. Yi-Zheng Wang was invited to attend the 4th Sino-German Stem Cell Meeting held in Dresden, Germany on July 3rd to 6th. During the meeting, Dr. Wang gave an invited talk entitled "Dual signals might affect metastatic activity in human hepatic cancer."
Drs. Xu Zhang, Shu-Min Duan and Xiang Yu were invited to attend the Gordon Research Conference on "Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology" held in Hongkong University of Science and Technology on June 8th to 13th.
On June 9th, 2008, Prof. Yoo Hun Suh, Director of the Steering Center for Construction of the Korea Brain Institute (KBI), visited ION. Drs. Ai-Ke Guo and Yi-Zheng Wang hosted his visit, giving a brief description of current research at ION and answering his questions. Prof. Yoo Hun Suh hopes that the successful experiences of ION can contribute towards establishing the Korea Brain Institute.
Dr. Yi-Zheng Wang was invited to attend 7th International Cell Death Society Symposium on "Targeting cell death pathways for human diseases" held in Shanghai June 6th to 9th. During the symposium, Dr. Wang gave an invited talk entitled "TRPC channels and neuronal survival".
On May 30, 2008, Nature Neuroscience published an online paper from ION entitled "Critical role of TRPC6 channels in the formation of excitatory synapses". This work was carried out by graduate students Jian Zhou and Wanlu Du, under the supervision of Dr. Yizheng Wang. The transient receptor potential canonical (TRPC) channels are Ca2+ permeable nonselective cation channels with different biological functions, but their roles in brain are largely unknown.
On May 27th, 2008, Mr. Nobuaki Teraoka, the director of the RIKEN's China Office and Mr. Tsuruo Yasushi, the deputy director of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)'s Beijing Office, visited ION.
During May 23-26, The Third Academic Review of ION PIs, the Fourth International Advisory Board Meeting, SIAS Symposium on "Frontier of Neuroscience" and the 9th SIAS Round-Table Discussion was held in Shanghai.
On May 21 2008, Journal of Neuroscience published an online paper from ION entitled "Increased dopamine level enhances male-male courtship in Drosophila". This work was done by graduate students Tong Liu and colleagues, under the supervision of Dr. Aike Guo, and in collaboration with Dr. Jean-Fran？ois Ferveur in France.
On May 11th - 13th, 2008, an ION group, including Drs. Shu-Min Duan, Jia-Wei Zhou, Zhi-Qi Xiong and You-Sheng Shu , Ms. Yan Wang, Mr. Yi-Xi Gu, Mr. Hao Wu and Mrs. Ai-Qin Wang, visited Zunyi Medical College (ZYMC) in Guizhou Province.
In the morning of May 5th, 2008, the mid-term review committee of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Innovation Center visited the State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience (SKLN). The committee members included Qing-Tai Chen, Li-Lan Zhu, Qi-Heng Hu. Following the progress report from Dr. Shu-Min Duan, Director of SKLN, committee members visited SKLN laboratories and facilities and gave important suggestions towards the CAS Innovation Center's development.
On April 24th - 25th, 2008, an ION delegation, including Prof. Mu-Ming Poo, Ms. Yan Wang, Drs. Shu-Min Duan, Zhi-Qi Xiong, Yu-Qiang Ding, Xiang Yu and Jiu-Lin Du, visited Zhejiang University School of Medicine. This visit was hosted by Prof. Jian-Hong Luo, Deputy Dean of Zhejiang University School of Medicine. After visiting the school, Drs. Shu-Min Duan, Zhi-Qi Xiong, Yu-Qiang Ding, Xiang Yu and Jiu-Lin Du gave seminars about their recent research work. Prof. Mu-Ming Poo gave a talk entitled “The A, B, C of scientific research”.
On March 23rd, 2008, the 9th Fudan-Tan Jiazheng-Jiu Yuan Scholarship review meeting was held in Hongzhou. The review committee awarded 72 students from 151 applicants the Jiu Yuan scholarship, including 1 top award, 10 first-class awards, 20 second-class awards and 41 third-class awards. 14 ION students received this award.
On April 8th, 2008, Prof. Nikolas Rose, the Chair of the European Neuroscience and Society Network (ENSN), visited ION.
Dr. Shumin Duan was invited to serve on the review committee for the evaluation of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) Program entitled “The significance of neuroglia for formation, function and plasticity of the synapse”. The review meeting was held by DFG in Bonn from April 2nd to 3rd, 2008.
On March 31st, 2008, a delegation from the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM), headed by Prof. André Sytota, the Executive Director of INSERM, visited ION.
Dr. Shumin Duan was invited to attend the Symposium of Purinergic Frontiers in Neuroprotection held in Taiwan, China on March 27th.
The First Academic Committee Meeting of the State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience (SKLN) was held at the Institute of Neuroscience on March 15th, 2008. Most of the Academic Committee members, including Professors Lin Chen, Shu-Min Duan, Ai-Ke Guo, Jian-Hong Luo, Qi-Shui Lin, Gang Pei, Mu-Ming Poo (Committee Chair), Bo-Qin Qiang, Xu Zhang, Ya-Ping Zhang, Ping Zheng and Jiang-Ning Zhou, attended this meeting.
A mini-symposium on “Mechanisms of Plasticity, from Molecules to MRI” was held at the Institute of Neuroscience on March 11th, 2008. During the symposium, Prof. Brigitte Roeder from the University of Hamburg, Dr. Joerg-Michael Breustedt from the Charité University Medicine Berlin, Dr. Christian Lohmann from the Max-Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Munich and Prof. Martin Korte from the Technical University at Braunschweig presented their recent works in talks
Prof. Ai-Ke Guo’s research finding on “Dopamine-Mushroom Body Circuit Regulates Saliency-Based Decision Making in Drosophila” was selected as one of the “2007 Top Ten Basic Research News of China”.
On January 10th, Nature Neuroscience published an article from ION entitled “Semaphorin-3A guides radial migration of cortical neurons during development”. This study was conducted in the Laboratory of Neural Development, mainly by graduate students Gang Chen, Jian Sima, and Ming Jin under the supervision of Dr. Xiao-Bing Yuan.The regulatory mechanism for neuronal migration in the developing cortex is a major unsolved problem in developmental neurobiology. It is generally accepted that the migration of newborn pyramidal neurons from the ventricular zone toward upper cortical layers is guided by radial glial fibers in the developing cortex,
The 2007 Joint Retreat between ION and USTC (University of Science and Technology of China) was held at the SIBS lecture hall on December 29th and 31st. Following the traditional Director’s Report from Prof. Mu-Ming Poo, in which he overviewed ION progress over the past year and discussed the definitions and importance of ethical scientific conduct, faculty members, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students from 17 ION laboratories and 7 USTC laboratories presented their recent work. Faculty, staff and students exchanged ideas and talked about potential future collaborations during this retreat.
Mid-term Review of the 973 Grant “Plasticity in Brain Structure and Function” was held in Shantou during December 23rd to 26th, 2007. All six group leaders within the grant, namely Drs. Yu-Qiang Ding, Zhen-Ge Luo, Shu-Min Duan, Xu Zhang, Ai-Ke Guo and Yi-Zheng Wang presented recent research progress and future plans of their respective teams to the review committee.
On December 7th, 2007, a delegation from Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP) and Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) visited ION, members included:
2007 ION Internal Laboratory Review for recently joined laboratories was held at the Institute of Neuroscience during December 6th to 10th, 2007. Laboratories reviewed included those of Drs. Zuo-Ren Wang, Xiao-Bing Yuan, Xiang Yu, Hai-Shan Yao, Jiu-Lin Du, You-Sheng Shu and Jia-Wei Zhou. In addition to overview presentations by faculty members, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows from these laboratories also presented their recent research progress.
Workshop for Sino-Germany Graduate Program was held at the Institute of Neuroscience November 29th to 30th, 2007. After opening remarks by Professors Martin Heisenburg and Ai-Ke Guo from the University of Würzburg and ION respectively, Prof. Bertram Gerber from the University of Würzburg gave a talk entitled “Pain-relief learning in fruit flies”, while Drs. Xu Zhang, Shu-Min Duan and Zuo-Ren Wang from ION presented their recent works in talks entitled “Molecular mechanisms for chronic pain”, “Regulated ATP release from lysosomes in astrocytes” and “Behavioral study of the neural circuit awaking fly from general anesthesia”. Also during the workshop, six graduate students from the University of Würzburg and eight graduate students from ION presented progress in their recent research works.
The Scientific Programming Meeting of the State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience for year 2008 was held at Su Zhou in Jiang Su Province on November 22nd to 24th, 2007. During the meeting, Drs. Zhen-Ge Luo, Zhi-Qi Xiong, Xiang Yu, Hai-Shan Yao, Jiu-Lin Du, You-Sheng Shu and Wei Wang presented their recent research works.
The memorial service for Prof. Xiang-Tong Zhang (Hsiang-Tung Chang) was held at Shanghai Longhua Funeral Home on November 11th, 2007 at 10:00 A.M. Prof. Zhang is a world-renowned neurophysiologist, a founding father of neuroscience research in China, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CA) and Honorary Director of the Institute of Neuroscience, CAS. The service was attended by nearly seven hundred people,
Professor Xiang-Tong Zhang (Hsiang-Tung Chang), academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Honorary Director of the Institute of Neuroscience, CAS, passed away at 15:45 hours on November 4th, 2007, in Shanghai at the age of 101.
On October 17th, the Journal of Neuroscience published an ION finding entitled “Activity-dependent development of callosal projections in the somatosensory cortex”. This work was conducted primarily by graduate students Chun-Lei Wang and Lei Zhang in Dr. Ding’s laboratory, with collaborations from Dr. Xiong and Dr. Duan’s laboratories at ION.
On October 10th, the Journal of Neuroscience published an article from ION entitled “Upregulation of acid-sensing ion channel ASIC1a in spinal dorsal horn neurons contributes to inflammatory pain hypersensitivity”. This work was done by graduate students Bo Duan with Long-Jun Wu and colleagues under the supervision of Prof. Tian-Le Xu.
Dr. You-Sheng Shu was invited to attend the 3rd International Workshop on Epileptic Seizure Prediction held in Freiburg, Germany, September 29th to October 2nd. During the session on “From Single Cells to Complex Networks II: Experimental Approaches, Single Cells and Small Networks in Slices”,
The Institute of Neuroscience (ION), Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, is initiating a new drive for recruitment of laboratory heads at the Investigator and Senior Investigator level. Since its founding in 1999, ION has aimed to implement the infrastructure of a modern research institute that provides an environment for rigorous scientific pursuit and fruitful interactions,
Dr. Zhi-Qi Xiong was invited to visit the Queensland Brain Institute at the University of Queensland in Australia from August 26th to 30th. During his visit, Dr. Xiong gave an invited talk entitled "Regulation of dendritic growth and synaptic plasticity by transducers of regulated CREB (TORCs)".
Drs. Xu Zhang and Tian-Le Xu were invited to attend the Second International Conference for Neurons and Brain Disease held in Toronto, August 29th to 31st. During the session on “Synapses, Sensory and Pain”,
On August 2nd, Dr. Aike Guo visited the RIKEN Brain Research Institute (BSI) and gave a lecture entitled “Cognition-like Activities in Drosophila Brain” in the BSI’s International Summer Program, aimed at training advanced graduate students interested in brain function.
Prof. Li Jia-Yang, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in charge of biological sciences, visited ION on July 26, accompanied by Prof. Kang Le (Director of the Bureau of Life Science & Biotechnology at CAS) and Mr. Hua Ren-Chang (Acting Director of CAS Shanghai Branch).
Dr. Shumin Duan organized and chaired the symposium on “Purine mediated neuron-glia interactions: physiological and pathological relevance” at the 2007 IBRO (International Brain Research Organization) World Congress of Neuroscience held between July 12th and 17th in Melbourne, Australia.
On July 19th, Neuron published an article from ION entitled “Rapsyn Interaction with Calpain Stabilizes AChR Clusters at the Neuromuscular Junction”. This study was conducted in the Laboratory of Synaptic Signaling, mainly by graduate students Fei Chen and Lei Qian under the supervision of Dr. Zhen-Ge Luo.
Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is not only the most important energy carrier inside the cell, but also a universal extracellular signaling molecule. Astrocytes, the most abundant glial cell type in the brain, have been found to release signaling molecules, including ATP, which mediates inter-astrocytic as well as neuronal-astrocytic interactions. Unlike in neurons and secretory cells,
On June 29th, Science published a report from ION entitled “Dopamine-Mushroom Body Circuit Regulates Saliency-Based Decision Making in Drosophila”. This study was conducted in the Laboratory of Learning & Memory, by graduate students Ke Zhang, Jian-zeng Guo, Yue-qing Peng and Xi Wang under the supervision of Dr. Ai-ke Guo
Dr. Shu-min Duan was invited to attend the Gordon Research Conference on “Excitatory Synapses & Brain Function” at Colby-Sawyer College, held June 10th to 15th. During the session on “Glia and Synaptic Function”, Dr. Duan gave an invited talk entitled “Plasticity of Neuron-glia signaling”.
Dr. Xu Zhang was invited to attend the Second International Congress on Neuropathic Pain held in Berlin, June 7th to 10th. During the session on “Molecular and Synaptic Mechanisms for Neuropathic Pain”,
On June 10th, Nature Cell Biology published online an article from ION entitled “Dishevelled promotes axon development by regulating atypical protein kinase C”. This study was conducted in the Laboratory of Synaptic Signaling, by graduate students and research assistants Xian Zhang, Ji Zhu, Guo-ying Yang, Qing-jie Wang and Lei Qian under the supervision of Dr. Zhen-Ge Luo.
Dr. Tian-le Xu was invited to visit the Department of Biochemistry at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST) from May 17th to 21st.
Jin-Ping Xi, Secretary of Shanghai CPC visited ION in the afternoon of May 21, 2007, accompanied by Yi-Cui Yin (Deputy Secretary of Shanghai CPC), Ding-Hua Yang (Deputy Mayor of Shanghai), Yi-Ping Li (Director, Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai), Xuan-Hai Li (Party Secretary, Science & Education Commission of Shanghai), Mian-Heng Jiang (President of Shanghai Branch, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Ren-Chang Hua (Party Secretary of Shanghai Branch, Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Kai-Xian Chen (Party Secretary of SIBS).
On May 23, 2007, a delegation from University of Leeds visited ION,
Xue-Yong Li, Secretary of the Leading Party Group and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), visited ION on May 20, 2007, accompanied by Xiao-Fang Wang (Director-General, Department of Development Planning, MOST), Xian-En Zhang (Director-General, Department of Basic Research, MOST),
On May 9th, the Journal of Neuroscience published an article from ION entitled “Experience improves feature extraction in Drosophila”. This work was done by graduate students Yueqing Peng, Wang Xi and colleagues under the supervision of Prof. Aike Guo.
Dr. You-sheng Shu was invited to visit the Department of Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden from May 4th to 8th. During his visit, Dr. Shu gave an invited talk entitled "Mechanisms of Recurrent Cortical Network Activity ".
Dr. Shumin Duan was invited to visit the National Neuroscience Institute and the National University of Singapore from April 25th to 27th.
As members of the Chinese Society for Cell Biology, Drs. Yi-zheng Wang and Zhen-ge Luo were invited to attend the 6th Across-the-Taiwan-Strait Symposium on Cell Biology in Taiwan,
On April 20th, Cell published a report from ION entitled “Long-Range Ca2+ Signaling from Growth Cone to Soma Mediates Reversal of Neuronal Migration Induced by Slit-2”.
On April 1st, Nature Neuroscience published online a report from ION entitled “TRPC channels promote cerebellar granule neuron survival”. This work was done by graduate students Yi-chang Jia and Jian Zhou, under the supervisoin of Dr. Yi-zheng Wang.
Dr. Shu-min Duan was invited to attend the Gordon Research Conference on “Glial Biology: Functional Interactions among Glia and Neurons” in Ventura, held March 11th to 16th, 2007. During the session of “Water, Calcium and Ligand Dynamics in Glia”,
Dr. Ai-ke Guo was invited to attend the Conference entitled “Insect Behavior: Small Brains, Big Functions” in Washington, held March 13th to 15th, 2007. Dr. Guo gave an invited talk entitled “Cognition in Drosophila”.
Dr. Ai-ke Guo was invited to attend the 10th Tamagawa-Riken Dynamic Brain Forum in Nagano, held March 7th to 9th, 2007.
On March 7, 2007, a delegation from GlaxoSmithKline visited ION,
The Start-up Meeting of our 973 Project “Plasticity in Brain Structure and Function” was held in the South-North Lake Area near Shanghai on February 14th , 2007.
On February 16th, 2007, Dr. ZHANG Xu was awarded the 6th Shanghai Peony Award for his research on the neural plasticity of the dorsal root ganglion and spinal dorsal horn, and the mechanism of chronic pain.
On February 16th, 2007, Dr. DUAN Shumin’s research on “Long-Term Potentiation of Neuron-Glia Synapses” was selected as one of the 2006 Top Ten News in Basic Research in China.
Dr. Xiao-bing Yuan was invited to attend the 1st Australia-China Biomedical Research Conference in Melbourne, held February 2nd to 4th, 2007.
On January 17th, the Journal of Neuroscience published a report from ION entitled “Differential roles of NR2A- and NR2B-containing NMDA receptors in activity-dependent BDNF gene regulation and limbic epileptogenesis”.
On December 20th, the first issue of PLoS ONE published a report from ION entitled “Requirement of TORC1 for Late-Phase Long-Term Potentiation in the Hippocampus”.
This year, the ION annual retreat was very special. It was the first joint retreat with faculty and students from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).
On October 23, 2006, a delegation from Gordon Research Conferences visited ION,
Prof. Perry F. Bartlett from the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) in Australia and Prof. Ai-Ke Guo from the Institute of Neuroscience signed a memorandum of understanding for research cooperations between the two institutes on October 12, 2006.
Prof. Chen Zhu, Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), visited ION on October 7, 2006, accompanied by administors from the Bureau of Life Science & Biotechnology at CAS.
Dr. Xu Zhang was invited to attend the Canada-China Joint Workshop on Neurogenetics in Ottawa, held September 28 to October 1, 2006.
On July 31st, Journal of Cell Biology published a report from ION entitled “Requirement of dendritic Akt degradation by ubiquitin proteasome system for neuronal polarity”.
On June 9th, Science published a report from ION entitled “Long-term potentiation of neuron-glia synapses mediated by Ca2+-permeable AMPA receptors”.
On May 30th, PNAS published a report from ION entitled “Microtubule affinity-regulating kinase 2 functions downstream of the PAR-3/PAR-6/atypical PKC complex in regulating hippocampal neuronal polarity”.
The cover story of the May 4th issue of Neuron reported the ION finding “Activity-induced rapid synaptic maturation mediated by presynaptic cdc42 signaling”.