Dr. Xian Zhang obtained his PhD in Neuroscience from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 2015, he then performed his postdoctoral research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). Since 2022, Dr. Xian Zhang started his independent academic career as an Assistant Professor in Bioscience and Biomedical Engineer Thrust, and an affiliated Assistant Professor at Division of the Life Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).

Research Question

Sensory information, behavioral action, even learning and memory are produced by connected neurons in distributed neural circuits that transduce external stimuli into internal states, form memories and allow us to take motivated behaviors. Understanding these neural circuits and how do they encode information is fundamental to under¬standing brain function and the causes of neural system disease.

Amygdala is a central structure for emotion and motivation. Unfortunately, our knowledge of the function of genetically identified neurons, wiring diagrams and neurotransmitters in different amygdala subregions remains primitive. We aim to answer 1) how do genetically determined neurons in the amygdala encode pain sensation and give rise to affective memories; 2) how does the brain transmit nociceptive information from the spinal cord to the amygdala; 3) how do neurotransmitters and the receptors in the amygdala regulate pain sensation.

Research Approaches

We take advantage of a wide range of state-of-the art experimental approaches, including transgenic/knock in mouse line to identify neuron types; Wide field/Miniscope one photon imaging to imaging neuronal activities; Photometry imaging to record axon activities; Opto/Chemogenetics to activate or inhibit neural activity; Patch clamp for electrophysiology; Crispr/Cas9 for gene knock out; Anterograde and retrograde tracing; All behavioral tasks and physiology measurements.

Representative Publications

1. Zhang X, Guan W, Yang T, Furlan A, Xiao X, Yu K, et al. Genetically identified amygdala–striatal circuits for valence-specific behaviors. Nature neuroscience. 2021.
2. Zhang X, Li B. Population coding of valence in the basolateral amygdala. Nature communications. 2018;9(1):5195.
3. Zhang X, Li B. A Pathway to Avoiding Threats? Neuron. 2018;100(4):780-2.
4. Yu K, Ahrens S, Zhang X, Schiff H, Ramakrishnan C, Fenno L, et al. The central amygdala controls learning in the lateral amygdala. Nature neuroscience. 2017;20(12):1680-5.
5. Xiao X, Deng H, Furlan A, Yang T, Zhang X, Hwang GR, et al. A Genetically Defined Compartmentalized Striatal Direct Pathway for Negative Reinforcement. Cell. 2020;183(1):211-27 e20.