Faculty

Dr. Yuan received her PhD training from University of Pennsylvania, where she studied the role of serotonergic regulation in circadian rhythms and sleep with Dr. Amita Sehgal. From 2006 to 2012, Dr. Yuan was trained as a postdoctoral fellow at University of California, San Francisco in Dr. Yuh-Nung Jan's laboratory, where she developed a system to study experience-dependent structural and functional plasticity in the Drosophila larval visual circuit. Dr. Yuan joined NINDS as an Earl Stadtman Investigator in 2013. The primary research goal is to identify the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the homeostatic regulation of dendrite morphogenesis and structural plasticity, as well as the development and maturation of the central cholinergic synapse.

• Sheng C, Javed U, Gibbs M, Long C, Yin J, Qin B, Yuan Q. (2018) Experience-dependent structural plasticity targets dynamic filopodia in regulating dendrite maturation and synaptogenesis. Nature Communications 9(1):3362. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-05871-5.
• Yin J, Gibbs M, Long C, Rosenthal J, Kim HS, Kim A, Sheng C, Ding P, Javed U, Yuan Q. (2018) Transcriptional Regulation of Lipophorin Receptors Supports Neuronal Adaptation to Chronic Elevations of Activity. Cell Reports 25(5):1181-1192.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2018.10.016.
• Yuan Q, Song Y, Yang CH, Jan LY, Jan YN. (2014) Female contact modulates male aggression via a sexually dimorphic GABAergic circuit in Drosophila. Nature Neuroscience 17(1):81-8. doi: 10.1038/nn.3581. Epub 2013 Nov 17.
• Yin J, Yuan Q. (2015) Structural homeostasis in the nervous system: a balancing act for wiring plasticity and stability Frontier of Cellular Neuroscience 8:439. doi: 10.3389/fncel.2014.00439. eCollection 2014.
• Yuan Q, Xiang Y, Yan Z, Han C, Jan LY, Jan YN. (2011) Light-induced structural and functional plasticity in Drosophila larval visual system Science 333(6048):1458-62. doi: 10.1126/science.1207121.

• Postdoctoral Fellow