Yin Liu

Within the domain of biostatistics, my research interests focus on the development of computational and statistical approaches to performing large-scale analysis of protein interactions, signal transduction pathways, genomic sequences, and gene expression. From a statistical point of view, I am interested in the field of Bayesian inference and its applications in Bioinformatics.

Michael Beierlein

Synapses display various forms of short-term plasticity during ongoing neuronal activity, which is thought to be critical for normal brain function. Focus of my lab will be to determine the mechanisms underlying such changes in strength at synapses within well-defined local circuits of neurons, and to reveal the consequences for proper circuit function.

We will address these questions by studying local circuits in brain slices of rats or mice that contain both somatosensory thalamus and neocortex. This system is particularly attractive, as individual facial whiskers map in one-to-one fashion onto anatomically defined networks of neurons. Brain slices will allow us to examine individual synaptic pathways using both electrophysiological and optical tools, while largely preserving local circuitry which will enable more functional studies.