Li Zhang
Director of the Center for Neural Circuits and Sensory Processing Disorders
Contact
White House: Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers , 2008
White House: Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, 2008
David and Lucile Packard Foundation: Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, 2006
Searle Scholar Program, Kinship Foundation: Searle Scholar Award, 2005
The Esther A. & and Joseph Klingenstein Fund: Klingenstein Fellowship Award in Neuroscience, 2005
Dcc Mediates Functional Assembly of Peripheral Auditory Circuits Sci Rep. 2016 Apr 04; 6:23799. . View in PubMed
EphA7 regulates spiral ganglion innervation of cochlear hair cells Dev Neurobiol. 2016 Apr; 76(4):452-69. . View in PubMed
Cross-Modality Sharpening of Visual Cortical Processing through Layer-1-Mediated Inhibition and Disinhibition Neuron. 2016 Mar 02; 89(5):1031-45. . View in PubMed
Thalamocortical Innervation Pattern in Mouse Auditory and Visual Cortex: Laminar and Cell-Type Specificity Cereb Cortex. 2016 06; 26(6):2612-25. . View in PubMed
Strengthening of Direction Selectivity by Broadly Tuned and Spatiotemporally Slightly Offset Inhibition in Mouse Visual Cortex Cereb Cortex. 2015 Sep; 25(9):2466-77. . View in PubMed
Synaptic Basis for Differential Orientation Selectivity between Complex and Simple Cells in Mouse Visual Cortex J Neurosci. 2015 Aug 05; 35(31):11081-93. . View in PubMed
Differential Receptive Field Properties of Parvalbumin and Somatostatin Inhibitory Neurons in Mouse Auditory Cortex Cereb Cortex. 2015 Jul; 25(7):1782-91. . View in PubMed
Auditory cortex controls sound-driven innate defense behaviour through corticofugal projections to inferior colliculus Nat Commun. 2015 Jun 11; 6:7224. . View in PubMed
Sensory Cortical Control of a Visually Induced Arrest Behavior via Corticotectal Projections Neuron. 2015 May 06; 86(3):755-67. . View in PubMed
Synaptic mechanisms for generating temporal diversity of auditory representation in the dorsal cochlear nucleus J Neurophysiol. 2015 Mar 01; 113(5):1358-68. . View in PubMed
At the interface of sensory and motor dysfunctions and Alzheimer's disease Alzheimers Dement. 2015 Jan; 11(1):70-98. . View in PubMed
Functional response properties of VIP-expressing inhibitory neurons in mouse visual and auditory cortex Front Neural Circuits. 2015; 9:22. . View in PubMed
A feedforward inhibitory circuit mediates lateral refinement of sensory representation in upper layer 2/3 of mouse primary auditory cortex J Neurosci. 2014 Oct 08; 34(41):13670-83. . View in PubMed
Formation of excitation-inhibition balance: inhibition listens and changes its tune Trends Neurosci. 2014 Oct; 37(10):528-30. . View in PubMed
Scaling down of balanced excitation and inhibition by active behavioral states in auditory cortex Nat Neurosci. 2014 Jun; 17(6):841-50. . View in PubMed
Enhancing gene delivery of adeno-associated viruses by cell-permeable peptides Mol Ther Methods Clin Dev. 2014; 1:12. . View in PubMed
Thresholding of auditory cortical representation by background noise Front Neural Circuits. 2014; 8:133. . View in PubMed
Linear transformation of thalamocortical input by intracortical excitation Nat Neurosci. 2013 Sep; 16(9):1324-30. . View in PubMed
Intracortical multiplication of thalamocortical signals in mouse auditory cortex Nat Neurosci. 2013 Sep; 16(9):1179-81. . View in PubMed
Interaural level difference-dependent gain control and synaptic scaling underlying binaural computation Neuron. 2013 Aug 21; 79(4):738-53. . View in PubMed
Slit/Robo signaling mediates spatial positioning of spiral ganglion neurons during development of cochlear innervation J Neurosci. 2013 Jul 24; 33(30):12242-54. . View in PubMed
Synaptic mechanisms underlying functional dichotomy between intrinsic-bursting and regular-spiking neurons in auditory cortical layer 5 J Neurosci. 2013 Mar 20; 33(12):5326-39. . View in PubMed
Generation of intensity selectivity by differential synaptic tuning: fast-saturating excitation but slow-saturating inhibition J Neurosci. 2012 Dec 12; 32(50):18068-78. . View in PubMed
Generation of spike latency tuning by thalamocortical circuits in auditory cortex J Neurosci. 2012 Jul 18; 32(29):9969-80. . View in PubMed
Broadening of cortical inhibition mediates developmental sharpening of orientation selectivity J Neurosci. 2012 Mar 21; 32(12):3981-91. . View in PubMed
Neurite outgrowth inhibitor Nogo-A establishes spatial segregation and extent of oligodendrocyte myelination Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Jan 24; 109(4):1299-304. . View in PubMed
From elementary synaptic circuits to information processing in primary auditory cortex Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2011 Nov; 35(10):2094-104. . View in PubMed
Perspectives on: information and coding in mammalian sensory physiology: inhibitory synaptic mechanisms underlying functional diversity in auditory cortex J Gen Physiol. 2011 Sep; 138(3):311-20. . View in PubMed
Broad inhibition sharpens orientation selectivity by expanding input dynamic range in mouse simple cells Neuron. 2011 Aug 11; 71(3):542-54. . View in PubMed
Visual representations by cortical somatostatin inhibitory neurons--selective but with weak and delayed responses J Neurosci. 2010 Oct 27; 30(43):14371-9. . View in PubMed
Fine-tuning of pre-balanced excitation and inhibition during auditory cortical development Nature. 2010 Jun 17; 465(7300):927-31. . View in PubMed
Preceding inhibition silences layer 6 neurons in auditory cortex Neuron. 2010 Mar 11; 65(5):706-17. . View in PubMed
Intervening inhibition underlies simple-cell receptive field structure in visual cortex Nat Neurosci. 2010 Jan; 13(1):89-96. . View in PubMed
Visual receptive field structure of cortical inhibitory neurons revealed by two-photon imaging guided recording J Neurosci. 2009 Aug 26; 29(34):10520-32. . View in PubMed
A genetic strategy for stochastic gene activation with regulated sparseness (STARS) PLoS One. 2009; 4(1):e4200. . View in PubMed
Lateral sharpening of cortical frequency tuning by approximately balanced inhibition Neuron. 2008 Apr 10; 58(1):132-43. . View in PubMed
Defining cortical frequency tuning with recurrent excitatory circuitry Nat Neurosci. 2007 Dec; 10(12):1594-600. . View in PubMed
Heterosynaptic scaling of developing GABAergic synapses: dependence on glutamatergic input and developmental stage J Neurosci. 2007 May 16; 27(20):5301-12. . View in PubMed
Nonmonotonic synaptic excitation and imbalanced inhibition underlying cortical intensity tuning Neuron. 2006 Nov 22; 52(4):705-15. . View in PubMed
Tone-evoked excitatory and inhibitory synaptic conductances of primary auditory cortex neurons J Neurophysiol. 2004 Jul; 92(1):630-43. . View in PubMed
Specialization of primary auditory cortex processing by sound exposure in the "critical period" Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 May 04; 101(18):7170-4. . View in PubMed
Topography and synaptic shaping of direction selectivity in primary auditory cortex Nature. 2003 Jul 10; 424(6945):201-5. . View in PubMed
Suppression of cortical representation through backward conditioning Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003 Feb 04; 100(3):1405-8. . View in PubMed
Moving visual stimuli rapidly induce direction sensitivity of developing tectal neurons Nature. 2002 Oct 03; 419(6906):470-5. . View in PubMed
Disruption of primary auditory cortex by synchronous auditory inputs during a critical period Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002 Feb 19; 99(4):2309-14. . View in PubMed
Electrical activity and development of neural circuits Nat Neurosci. 2001 Nov; 4 Suppl:1207-14. . View in PubMed
Persistent and specific influences of early acoustic environments on primary auditory cortex Nat Neurosci. 2001 Nov; 4(11):1123-30. . View in PubMed
Emergence of input specificity of ltp during development of retinotectal connections in vivo Neuron. 2001 Aug 30; 31(4):569-80. . View in PubMed
Visual input induces long-term potentiation of developing retinotectal synapses Nat Neurosci. 2000 Jul; 3(7):708-15. . View in PubMed
Selective presynaptic propagation of long-term potentiation in defined neural networks J Neurosci. 2000 May 01; 20(9):3233-43. . View in PubMed
A critical window for cooperation and competition among developing retinotectal synapses Nature. 1998 Sep 03; 395(6697):37-44. . View in PubMed
Technical innovation is the key for exploring the dauntingly complex brain circuits. In the past years, we have committed substantial efforts in developing molecular/genetic and electrophysiological/imaging techniques for elucidating the neural circuits for both local neuronal computation and for controlling animal behavior. To this end, we have pioneered in applying in vivo whole-cell voltage-clamp recording, to reveal at the synaptic connection level, how the excitatory and inhibitory synaptic interplay determines the sensory response/processing properties. We have now integrated a broad spectrum of state-of-the-art approaches, including in vivo and in vitro electrophysiology, two-photon Ca2+ imaging, neural modeling, anatomical tracing and optogentics, to build an understanding of neural circuits composed of different cell types.