Y. Kate Hong, PhD

  • Adjunct Assistant Professor, Neuroscience

Phone

412- 268-5844

E-mail

katehong@andrew.cmu.edu

Personal Website

www.thehonglab.com

Education & Training

Harvard University, PhD

Campus Address

4400 Fifth Ave, Mellon Institute 207
Pittsburgh PA 15213

One-Line Research Description

Neural circuits for sensory-guided behavior

My lab is interested in understanding the organization and function of neural circuits that underlie sensory-guided behaviors. Sensory information received from the environment is encoded by a series of neural circuits that must precisely coordinate their activity to generate an accurate perception of the world. Our broad goal is to establish how multiple areas of the brain dynamically orchestrate neural activity during active sensation. We combine optogenetics, electrophysiology, and animal behavior to investigate how touch information is processed in the brain. In particular, we aim to establish how the cortex modulates sensory information in downstream subcortical regions, and further, define the mechanisms by which subcortical areas are affected by, and recover from, cortical injury.

Representative Publications

Rodgers CC, Nogueira R, Pil BC, Greeman EA, Park JM, Hong YK, Fusi S, Bruno RM (2021). “Sensorimotor strategies and neural representations for shape discrimination.” Neuron 109: 2308-2325.e10 (Link)

Warren RA, Zhang Q, Hoffman JR, Li EY, Hong YK, Bruno RM, Sawtell NB (2021). A rapid sensory motor decision underlying skilled locomotion in mice. Elife 10:e63596 (Link)

Hong YK, Burr EF, Sanes JR and Chen C (2019). Heterogeneity of retinogeniculate axons. European Journal of Neuroscience 49: 948-956 (Link)

Hong YK, Lacefield CO, Rodgers CC, Bruno RM (2018) Sensation, movement, and learning in the absence of primary sensory cortex. Nature 561: 542-546 (Link)

Krishnaswamy A, Yamagata M, Duan X, Hong YK and Sanes JR (2015). Sidekick 2 directs formation of a retinal circuit that detects differential motion. Nature 524: 466-70 (Link)

Hong YK, Park S, Litvina EY, Morales J, Sanes JR and Chen C (2014). Refinement of the Retinogeniculate Synapse by Bouton Clustering. Neuron 84: 332-339 (Link)

Noutel J, Hong YK, Leu B, Kang E and Chen C (2011). Experience-dependent retinogeniculate synapse remodeling is abnormal in MeCP2-deficient mice. Neuron 70: 35-42.(Link)

Hong YK, Kim IJ and Sanes JR (2011). Stereotyped axonal arbors of retinal ganglion cell subsets in the mouse superior colliculus. Journal of Comparative Neurology 519: 1691-711 (Link)