Wei-Chung Lee, PhD – Faculty Profile
Associate Professor of Neurobiology in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School and Associate Professor of Neurology at Boston Children’s Hospital.
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Contact
Email: wei-chung_lee@hms.harvard.edu
Lee Lab website: www.lee.hms.harvard.edu
The Aim
The Lee Lab maps the brain wiring that supports learning, movement, and decision-making.
The Impact
Combining detailed maps of neural connections with observations of how these circuits function during different behaviors allows the lab to understand how the brain processes information. Using advanced imaging, recording, and genetic techniques, the lab links “wiring diagrams” of the brain to real-life activity.
This work provides crucial insight into what happens when activity in these circuits is interrupted or increased. For example, such changes are observed in the brains of individuals with autism and Parkinson’s disease. Knowing how each neuron in a circuit affects another may help lead to treatments that restore brain function, one connection at a time.
A Closer Look
HMS News — January 2023: A New Field of Neuroscience Aims to Map Connections in the Brain
Wei-Chung Lee spoke with HMS News about the subfield of neuroscience called “connectomics.” He describes the tools he and his collaborators use to map the brain and explains why it is important to understand how each part of a neural circuit connects to another. The article describes how connectomics combines detailed maps of neuronal connections with information about neural activity and behavior.
GeekWire — March 2016: Scientists Trace the Myriad Connections in a Tiny Tangle of Mouse Neurons
In a project that spanned nearly a decade, members of the Lee and Reid labs traced 1,278 individual neurons to map how they branch out and connect with one another. The research combined functional imaging with large-scale electron microscopy to examine the relationship between neuronal activity and circuit structure.
The accompanying article describes how neurons in the mouse visual cortex were mapped in three dimensions and how neurons with similar functions formed stronger connections with one another.