Ph.D - Computational Neuroscience
University of Chicago - 2018
Qiang (Chris) Chen
Assistant Professor - Department of Neuroscience
Research Interests: We study how neural circuits adapt to changing visual conditions and how disease disrupts this flexibility, with the goal of uncovering early dysfunction and developing better diagnostic tools.
Professional Preparation
B.S - Physics
University of Science and Technology of China - 2011
University of Science and Technology of China - 2011
Research Areas
Understanding vision in a changing world
We study how neural circuits adapt to changing visual conditions and how disease disrupts this flexibility, with the goal of uncovering early dysfunction and developing better diagnostic tools.Publications
Origin and functional impact of early nonlinearities in primate retina 2026 - Journal Article
Spatially local inhibition and synaptic plasticity together enable dynamic, context-dependent integration of parallel sensory pathways 2026 - Journal Article
Spatially-local inhibition and synaptic plasticity together enable dynamic, context-dependent integration of parallel sensory pathways 2025 - Other
Dendritic mGluR2 and perisomatic Kv3 signaling regulate dendritic computation of mouse starburst amacrine cells 2024 - Journal Article
Divergent Pathways in Retinal Adaptation: Investigating the Impact of Light History on Encoding Natural Images in Non-Human Primates 2024 - Journal Article
Predictably manipulating photoreceptor light responses to reveal their role in downstream visual responses 2024 - Journal Article
Light-adaptation clamp: a tool to predictably manipulate photoreceptor light responses. 2023 - Journal Article
Efficient stimulation of retinal regeneration from Müller glia in adult mice using combinations of proneural bHLH transcription factors 2021 - Journal Article
Appointments
Acting Instructor
University of Washington, Seattle [2024–2026]
University of Washington, Seattle [2024–2026]
Postdoc Fellow
University of Washington, Seattle [2019–2024]
University of Washington, Seattle [2019–2024]
Projects
How does visual context determine which circuit mechanisms matter?
Light level, contrast, spatial structure, and recent visual history change the demands on retinal circuits. We ask how different combinations of excitation, inhibition, and synaptic dynamics allow the same network to produce reliable signals across these conditions.Can visual context reveal dysfunction that would otherwise remain hidden?
A circuit may perform well in one setting but struggle when another recruits a vulnerable mechanism. Using our healthy-retina reference, we will investigate how circuit motifs are affected across disease stages, including in models of retinitis pigmentosa and glaucoma.We ask which mechanisms become vulnerable, which can compensate, and when compensation becomes insufficient. Our long-term goal is to design visual assays grounded in cellular biophysics and circuit function, making early changes easier to detect.