Ming-fai Fong, Ph.D.*

Postdoctoral Researcher
Department Picower Institute for Learning
and Memory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Monday, March, 11, 2019
10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.
Emory University, Health Sciences Research Building (HSRB)
Room E160

Videoconference
Georgia Tech: UAW 3115/ Georgia Tech: TEP 208
https://bluejeans.com/809850842

“Developing Plasticity-Based Technology for Treating Visual Disability”

ABSTRACT

Disruptions to sensory experience during infancy or early childhood can drive abnormal development of neural circuits.  Later in life, brain injury or disease can alter neural circuits that process sensory information.  These common adversities can result in profound disabilities in sensory processing and severely impact quality of life.  The central goal of my research is to develop technologies to treat these developmental or injury-induced neurological disorders and restore normal processing of afferent sensory information.  In this talk, I will review my recent investigations leveraging neural plasticity to promote recovery from a widespread neurodevelopmental form of visual disability called amblyopia.  First, I will show that temporarily silencing activity in the retinas reliably drives a generalized homeostatic potentiation of visual cortical activity in mice.  I will then present electrophysiological, anatomical, and behavioral evidence that retinal silencing fosters a stable recovery from visual impairment in amblyopic mice and cats, including in older animals that are typically recalcitrant to treatment.  Finally, I will discuss the critical role of burst-mode firing in the thalamus in visual recovery.  I will conclude by describing a framework for developing plasticity-based therapies and neural prosthetics for sensory rehabilitation.

BIOGRAPHY

Ming-fai Fong received her BS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 2005 and her PhD in Neuroscience from Emory University in 2014.  She completed her undergraduate thesis on low-power locomotive robotics with Dr. Russ Tedrake and Dr. H. Sebastian Seung.  As a graduate student, she used closed-loop approaches to study homeostatic synaptic plasticity under the mentorship of Dr. Steve Potter and Dr. Peter Wenner.  Fong has also previously worked in wheelchair design, clean water initiatives, and STEM education, most recently as a visiting faculty member at Wellesley College.  Fong is currently a Research Scientist in the laboratory of Dr. Mark Bear at the MIT Picower Institute for Learning and Memory where she studies visual disability and rehabilitation.

Host: Machelle Pardue