- This event has passed.
Abstract:
The brain is a complex system spanning multiple spatiotemporal scales, from protein molecules organizing into intricate nano-machines in the synapse to many neurons interconnected via synapses to form circuits across the brain. In the past decade, we have employed and developed various imaging methods to explore this complexity over different scales. At the microscopic scale, we have employed cryo-electron tomography (cryoET) and correlative light-electron microscopy (CLEM) to visualize ultrastructural features of synapses in their native state, revealing unique mesophasic organization of neurotransmitter receptors (Nature Neurosci. 23, 1589, 2020). At the mesoscopic scale, we have developed an ultra-high speed volumetric imaging approach, VISoR, that enables, for the first time, visualization of the whole-brain structure of the rhesus monkey, revealing unexpected trajectories and complex arborization patterns of individual thalamocortical axons (Nature Biotech. 39, 1521, 2021). Beyond the brain, we have developed a blockface-VISoR system to achieve high-speed imaging of the whole mouse body at micron-resolution, and to explore previously unattainable features of the peripheral nerve fibers and its interaction with other tissues throughout the entire body (Cell, in press).
Bio:
Dr. Guo-Qiang Bi is a Xinchuang Professor of Neurobiology and Biophysics and Changjiang Scholar at University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), and Director of Interdisciplinary Center for Brain Information at Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He received his B.S. in physics at Peking University, Ph.D. in biophysics at UC Berkeley and postdoctoral training at UCSD. Before joining USTC, he was an Associate Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. His research interest is on the biophysics of neuronal systems, especially that related to plasticity and learning. His early work revealed computational rules and cellular mechanisms of spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP). In recent years, his lab has been using new imaging tool to explore the cross-scale structure and dynamics of the nervous system, including in situ molecular organization and dynamics inside synapses, and brain-wide circuit architecture from mouse to monkey.