Date and Time: 2nd September 2013 (Monday), 3:00 PM
Venue: N204, Choi Kai Yau Building, University of Macau
Abstract
The human brain is connected by billions of neurons and our understanding to this huge neuronal circuitry is still very minimal. This year, both the United States and the European Union have launched their respective major research programs to map the whole neural activities of the brain in the cell level. Particularly, the technique of “Optogenetics” opens up new ways to manipulate neural circuitries of either stimulating or suppressing neural signals with high spatial and temporal accuracies using optical light pulses in conscious animals. In this talk, I will discuss our recent published work in characterizing the optical scattering property of rodent brains. With our mathematical model and data, we have created an iOS program to accurately predict the optical power for optogenetic neural manipulations. In addition, I will also discuss our on-going development of using microelectronics, collaborating between University of Macau and University of Colorado, in solving mysteries of the brain.
Biography
Dr. Lei is an assistant professor at Electrical Engineering Department of the University of Colorado Denver. He also holds secondary adjunct faculty appointments at the Renal Medicine, Bioengineering, Ophthalmology, and Physiology & Biophysics Departments. His research interests focus on applying and developing advanced optical imaging and spectroscopic techniques to study some interesting and important biomedical problems. His areas of research include: 1) measurements of protein dynamics and interactions using fluorescence correlation techniques on cell membranes and lipid rafts for chronic kidney diseases, 2) developments of nonlinear imaging techniques for early glaucoma detection and diagnostics, and 3) developments of engineering tools to understand and to manipulate neural circuits in the brain.