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Rui Chang, PhD

Faculty Member

Center for Neurocognition and Behavior | Center for Neurodevelopment and Plasticity

Email | Department

Interoception and the organ-brain axis

Like the splendid external world, the environment inside our body is constantly changing. The ability to monitor internal organ status by the nervous system is essential, ensuring an appropriate regulation of physiology and behavior to diverse body needs. What signals are critical for this communication between body organs and the brain? How are different organ cues being detected and processed? How do these interoceptive signals shape our cognition and behaviors? My lab uses state-of-the-art molecular, genetic, and imaging approaches including single-cell gene expression profiling, virus-based anatomical tracing, in vivo imaging, optogenetics, and chemogenetics to functionally dissect out diverse organ-to-brain circuits. Our goal is to better understand the important body-brain interface, and to develop novel neuronal-based strategies for modulating behavior and cognition.

Biography

Rui Chang received his B.S. in Biological Sciences and Biotechnology from Tsinghua University, China in 2005 and his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the University of Southern California in 2011. He completed his postdoctoral training with Stephen Liberles at Harvard Medical School and joined both the Department of Neuroscience and the Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale University School of Medicine in January 2018. He is a recipient of the NIH Director's New Innovator Award in 2019 and the McKnight Neurobiology of Brain Disorders Award in 2020.