Ze Ou
Program: Unspecified
Current advisor:
Undergraduate university: Johns Hopkins University
Research summary
Our lab studies strokes. We have found that strokes to the somatosensory cortex cause global functional connectivity changes in addition to changes to the local region in mice. However, we have never looked at whether strokes to the primary visual cortex would induce similar global effects given that the visual cortex occupies a smaller role in a mouse’s cortex.
Therefore, I spearheaded this research in a month with the hypothesis that the global effects will be different for the two types of strokes. I learned how to use the wide-field imaging system, how to process and analyze the images, how to handle animals, how to install cranial windows, and how to perform photothrombolysis.
After spending a month in the imaging room and the surgical core, we found that stroke to the visual cortex indeed induces different functional connectivity changes to the entire cortex than the somatosensory cortex. As I was wrapping up the rotation after a month, the lab continued to monitor these mice for up to 4 weeks. We are currently analyzing the data to discover if there is a difference between the long-term effects of strokes in the two regions.
Graduate publications