Jun Ding

Controlling brain activity using chemicals and drugs is instrumental in neuroscience research, but current delivery methods for these compounds are imprecise. A proposed synthetic neural interface will allow for more controlled chemical and drug release by using ultrasound to precisely penetrate neural tissue.

Due to the critical role that dopamine producing neurons play in pathophysiology, it is important to examine the function of its co-released GABA. This research aims to study GABA biosynthesis in midbrain dopamine producing neurons and it’s effect on striatal inhibition.

The goal is to forge an inter-disciplinary collaboration between physicists, biologists, chemists, and translational medical scientists by inventing new ways of visualizing the brain, from individual molecules to neuronal circuits to entire brain regions, from a normally functioning neuron to a diseased brain.