• Sep: Nanqin LI joined the lab as PhD student and Chong CHEN joined as Master student. Welcome!

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• Aug: paper published! "The connexin hemichannel inhibitor D4 produces rapid antidepressant-like effects in mice" https://jneuroinflammation.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12974-023-02873-z

 

• Aug: Dr. Yu FU, A*STAR Singapore, visited the lab and gave a seminar on "Feeding regulation by tuberal nucleus somatostatin neurons: from feeding to neurodegeneration"

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• Jul: Geoff gave a poster presentation on "Activation of parvalbumin interneurons in the anterior piriform cortex alleviates seizures in temporal lobe epilepsy" at the GRC Inhibition in CNS in Switzerland

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• Jun: Geoff gave a talk on "Fasting-induced plasticity in the olfactory cortex and foraging behavior" at IMCB, A*STAR, Singapore

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• Jun: Geoff gave a talk on "Inhibition of connexin hemichannels alleviates neuroinflammation and hyperexcitability in temporal lobe epilepsy" at the Asian-Pacific Society for Neurochemistry meeting, Singapore

 

• Geoff gave a talk on "Targeting connexin hemichannels and neuroinflammation for treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders" at the Joint symposium on Brain and Vision Health with Jinan Univ & CityU

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2023▲

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• Press release or news coverage for our PNAS paper:

 

CityU neuroscientists discover a new drug candidate for treating epilepsy 

 

刘俊宇团队揭示连接蛋白半通道在减轻颞叶癫痫发病过程中的神经炎症和过度兴奋的重要作用

 

EurekAlert!

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Medical Xpress

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Nature reviews neurology

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Altmetric

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• Nov: paper published! "Inhibition of connexin hemichannels alleviates neuroinflammation and hyperexcitability in temporal lobe epilepsy" https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2213162119

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• Oct: paper published x2! "Activation of Somatostatin-Expressing Neurons in the Lateral Septum Improves Stress-Induced Depressive-like Behaviors in Mice" https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4923/14/10/2253

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• Pablo Fuentealba (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) visited our lab

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• Oct: paper published! "Acute Fasting Modulates Food-Seeking Behavior and Neural Signaling in the Piriform Cortex", https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/19/4156.

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• Aug: Anni successfully defended her thesis! Congratulations, Dr. Guo!!

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• Aug: Huanhuan successfully defended his thesis! Congratulations, Dr. Li!!

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• Finalists of HK Brain Bee Competition visited CityU Neuroscience and our lab. https://www.cityu.edu.hk/neuro/news_20220803_visit.htm

 

• Apr: paper published! "TNF-α Orchestrates Experience-Dependent Plasticity of Excitatory and Inhibitory Synapses in the Anterior Piriform Cortex" https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2022.824454/full

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2022▲

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• Huanhuan received the Second Prize of Mightex Annual Research Excellence Award 2021. Congrats, Huanhuan! https://www.mightexbio.com/about-us/mightex-awards/

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• Sep: paper published x2! "Target-specific control of piriform cortical output via distinct inhibitory circuits". https://faseb.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1096/fj.202100757R

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• Sep: paper published! "Deletion of TrkB in parvalbumin interneurons alters cortical neural dynamics". https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jcp.30571

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• Jun: the lab received funding from the RGC GRF for the project entitled, "TNF-α orchestrates experience-dependent balancing of excitation-inhibition in the olfactory cortex"!

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• Jan: paper published! A nice collboration with Dr. Cora Lai (HKU) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-020-01005-w. Congrats Hehai on being a second author!

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• Jan: Esther joined the lab as PhD student. Welcome, Esther!

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2021▲

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• Aug: Hehai successfully defended his thesis! Congratulations, Dr. Jiang!!

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• Jun: the lab received funding from the RGC GRF for the project entitled, "Hunger-dependent control of olfactory cortical circuits regulates food-seeking behavior" with top score!

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• May: Geoff started in the newly established Dept of Neuroscience, the first of its kind in HK.

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• Mar: the lab received funding from the Shenzhen govt for the General Basic Research Program on depression!

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• Feb: unfortunately, all GRC conferences in Hong Kong in 2020 were canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. See you all in 2022!

 

2020 ▲ 

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• The preliminary program for the 2020 GRC Neuroplasticity of Sensory Systems: Neuroplasticity of Attention, Prediction and Learning is online: https://www.grc.org/neuroplasticity-of-sensory-systems-conference/2020/
  June 21 - 26, 2020
  HKUST, Hong Kong SAR

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• Oct: Hehai presented his work at the Biannual Chinese Neuroscience Meeting at Suzhou.

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• Sep: Pablo Fuentealba (Pontifical Catholic Univ. of Chile) visited the lab and Dept.

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• Jul: Huiqi ZHANG joined as PhD student. Charles Chen (U of Toronto) and Victor Yang (U of Chicago) joined as summer intern. Welcome all!

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• Mar 2019: The Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Studies held a symposium on Advances in Neuroscience with fantastic speaker lineup.

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2019 ▲

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• 20-22 Nov: Geoff was an invited speaker at a conference, "Recent progress on the mechanisms of neurological dysfunction in epilepsy", held by the Chilean Society of Biology and Chilean Society for Neurscience at Puerto Varas, Chile.

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• 7-8 Sep: Geoff served as Session Chair for "New Targets in Alzheimer’s disease” at the 2018 International AD conference.

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• Sep: Huanhuan LI has joined the lab as PhD student. Welcome Huanhuan!

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• Jul: The lab received an Early Career Scheme funding from HK RGC for the project entitled "Inhibitory gating of neural circuits for dynamic representation of distinct odor features"!

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• Linda (U of Toronto) started as summer intern. Welcome, Linda!

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• 3-7 June: Geoff attended the inaugural Gordon Research Conference Neuroplasticity of Sensory Systems at Shatin, Hong Kong. Exciting science abound! BMS news coverage.

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• May 2018: Geoff attended a symposium organized by the Croucher foundation and Max Planck Society at the Schloss Ringberg at Tegernsee, Germany. Geoff gave a talk at the Molecular Imaging and One Health during 2018 Molecular Imaging Instrumentation Conference organized by the University of Chicago and CityU (news).

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2018 ▲

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• Sep: Hehai (Bernard) and Anni started as PhD students, and Stephanie started as FYP student. Welcome all!

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• Aug: Paper published!!! "Distinct projection patterns of different classes of layer 2 principal neurons in the olfactory cortex"

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• Jul/Aug: Profs. Cynthia Moss (Johns Hopkins) and Robert B. Illing (Freiburg) gave talks at BMS.

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• Jul: CityU BMS hosted its first Research Summer Camp.

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• Jun: Chloe presented her undergraduate work at the College of Science and Engineering Discovery and Innovation Gala. She also started as RA in the lab.

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• Jun: Geoff gave a talk at Capital Medical University, Beijing.

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• Jun: Geoff is now editorial board member of Journal of Brain and Neuroscience Research and Neural Circuits.

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• Apr: Geoff gave a talk at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Science. Guest speakers included Jens Rehfeld (Copenhagen) and Tomas Hökfelt (Karolinska Institutet).

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• Mar: Congrats to undergraduate Chloe for submitting her Final Year Project dissertation!

 

• March 2017: Manuscript entitled "Distinct projection patterns of different classes of layer 2 principal neurons in the olfactory cortex" archived at bioArxiv online!

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2017 ▲

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• Dec: Harry Choi started as RA. Welcome Harry!

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• Nov: Prof. Arthur Konnerth (Institute of Neuroscience, TUM, Munich) delivered a seminar at BMS.

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• Oct: Arthur Chiu started as RA. Welcome Arthur!

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• 15-16 Aug: Sir Colin Blakemore (Oxford, MRC) delivered a series of lectures at CityU on visual perception and brain development.

 

• Jul: Geoff went to Xichang and Jinping of Sichuan province to attend a CityU-led conference on material science, nanoscience and neuroscience.

 

• 18 May: Geoff gave a presentation on PV neurons at the HKU Neuroscience Symposium "Nature and nurture in brain functions". Yang Dan, King-Wai Yau and Michael Häusser were some of the distinguished speakers.

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• March 2016: Geoff's lab opened its doors at CityU

 

2016 ▲

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