Tan Lab
Genetics, Plasticity and Vision
Research
We aim to understand cross-species mechanisms by which genetics and experience regulate the brain development and dysfunction at different levels. To do this, we use state-of-art molecular, cellular, circuit, physiological, anatomical and behavioral approaches in mouse and primates. Our recent work demonstrated that visual experience is required for both the functional and cell-type specification of L2/3 glutamatergic neurons in the mouse primary visual cortex (Tan et al., Neuron 2020, Current Biology 2021, J. Neurosci. 2022; Cheng, Butrus and Tan et al., Cell 2022). We are building up and expanding our research topics from these findings, to ask how experience regulates the development of cell-type specific circuits at whole brain level. In addition, we are trying to rebuild eye-brain circuits in large animal models of optic nerve disease. The ultimate goal of our research is to treat brain dysfunction in human.
Retinotopic Mapping
