Lin, Andrew - University of Sheffield - Department of Biomedical Science

个人简介

2015 - present: Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, University of Sheffield 2009 - 2015: Postdoctoral fellow, University of Oxford. Advisor: Gero Miesenböck 2004 - 2009: PhD, University of Cambridge. Advisor: Christine Holt 2000 - 2004: AB Biology, Harvard University

研究领域

How does the brain recognise sensory stimuli? How does it form distinct memories for different stimuli, even very similar ones? And how does it wire itself up to process information in the best way to achieve these remarkable feats? Our research addresses these fundamental questions using the olfactory system of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Flies have a much simpler nervous system than humans but are still capable of complex behaviours such as associative memory. This simplicity, combined with the power of fly genetics, makes Drosophila an excellent model system for tackling basic questions about neural circuit function. Flies can form distinct associative memories for different odours, even very similar ones, and this stimulus-specificity depends on ‘sparse coding’, in which Kenyon cells, the neurons that encode olfactory associative memories, respond sparsely to odours, i.e. only a few neurons in the population respond to each odour. This sparse coding in turn depends on a delicate balance of excitation and inhibition onto Kenyon cells. We are studying how this balance is created and maintained. In doing so, we use a combination of in vivo two-photon imaging, patch-clamp electrophysiology, individual-fly behavioural experiments, transcriptional profiling, and genetic manipulation of identified neurons. By improving our understanding of how the brain balances excitation and inhibition, this work may shed light on neurological disorders, like epilepsy, where this balance goes wrong.

近期论文

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Lin AC, Bygrave AM, De Calignon A, Lee T & Miesenböck G (2014) Sparse, decorrelated odor coding in the mushroom body enhances learned odor discrimination. Nature Neuroscience, 17(4), 559-568. View this article in White Rose Research Online Rezával C, Nojima T, Neville MC, Lin AC & Goodwin SF (2014) Sexually dimorphic octopaminergic neurons modulate female postmating behaviors in drosophila. Current Biology, 24(7), 725-730. Perisse E, Yin Y, Lin AC, Lin S, Huetteroth W & Waddell S (2013) Different Kenyon cell populations drive learned approach and avoidance in Drosophila. Neuron, 79(5), 945-956. Parnas M, Lin AC, Huetteroth W & Miesenböck G (2013) Odor discrimination in Drosophila: from neural population codes to behavior. Neuron, 79(5), 932-944.