Ma-Li Wong
Upstate Medical University, NY·Neuroscience
Recognizing someone you have met before is a basic part of social life. Trouble with this kind of social memory appears in autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), neurodegenerative disease, and after traumatic brain injury or stroke.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Genetics
Psychology
- Topics
social memory
social recognition
social cognition
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2027
What they work on
- Characterize how loss of PHF21B, an epigenetic regulator, impairs social recognition memory in mice, using the three-chamber social interaction test and the five-trial social memory test.
- Define the role of PHF21B in hippocampal neurons and determine which aspects of neuronal function relevant to social behavior are disrupted when it is missing.
- Identify PHF21B target genes and test how its binding to H3K36me3, a histone tag on actively transcribed genes, shapes transcription and splicing relevant to social memory.
More about the research
This project asks how a gene regulator called PHF21B (plant homeodomain finger protein 21B) supports social memory.
Why it matters
Social cognitive problems affect people with autism, ADHD and neurodegenerative conditions, as well as survivors of traumatic brain injury and stroke, and few treatments target them directly. Identifying the genes and mechanisms PHF21B controls in the hippocampus may reveal new pharmacological targets for social memory deficits.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Xiaoting Wu
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY·Neuroscience
Identify neuromodulatory inputs to ventral CA1 (vCA1), a hippocampal region, that drive positive social memories, using optogenetics in Cre-driver mice, fiber photometry during social interactions, and conditional deletion of neuromodulators.
Jia Fei
Rutgers University-New Brunswick, NJ·Biochemistry
Characterize how NDF loosens nucleosomes, the protein spools that package DNA, and helps RNA Polymerase II move through them, using ultra-high-resolution optical tweezers and cryo-electron microscopy.
Sampath Jayarathna
Old Dominion University, VA·Computer Science·Early-career
Build a "streaming hub," a framework for real-time, computationally efficient processing of eye-tracking data from one or more users, in place of offline batch analysis.
The school
Upstate Medical University: 7 labs on PI Pages, $59M a year on research, 23 research doctorates a year.
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