Dr. Bo Li is Chair Professor of Neuroscience at Westlake University. He received his Bachelor’s Degree (Medicine) from Jining Medical College in 1992, Master’s degree (Psychology) from Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1997, and Ph.D. (Neuroscience) from The University of British Columbia in 2003. He did his postdoctoral research from 2003 to 2008, first at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and then at University of California, San Diego. He was recruited back to CSHL as an Assistant Professor in 2008, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2013 and Professor in 2017. He was the Robert Lourie Endowed Professor at CSHL before joining Westlake University in August 2023.

Research in Dr. Bo Li’s laboratory focuses on the cellular and circuit mechanisms underlying aspects of motivated behaviors – including motivation, valence processing and learning – as well as cellular and circuit dysfunctions that may underlie mental disorders, including depression, anxiety disorders， autism, and drug addiction. More recently, Dr. Li’s team has embarked on studying the interactions between the brain and peripheral metabolism in the contexts of cancer progression and obesity. His research integrates in vitro and in vivo electrophysiology, imaging, molecular, genetic, optogenetic, chemogenetic and RNA sequencing technologies to probe and manipulate the functions of specific neural circuits in the rodent brain, and to determine their roles in adaptive/maladaptive behavioral and metabolic responses. Dr. Li’s team has made the following major contributions.

1. Amygdala circuits and motivated behaviors

· Discovered and elucidated the synaptic plasticity, the cell types, the coding properties and the projection circuits of central amygdala neurons essential for learning. Further delineated the cellular dysfunctions in central amygdala circuits that cause anxiety.

· Identified valence-specific and hard-wired circuits in the basolateral amygdala. Further showed that learning maps the representations of sensory stimuli onto these hard-wired circuits to guide flexible behaviors during reward and aversive learning.

2. Cortico-basal ganglia-brainstem circuits and motivated behaviors

· Discovered that enhanced excitatory synaptic transmission onto lateral habenula (LHb) neurons drives depression-like behaviors. Further demonstrated that the inputs from the globus pallidus to the LHb (GPh®LHb) are critical for outcome evaluation, while the inputs from the ventral pallidum to the LHb (VP®LHb) regulates motivation during reward seeking and punishment avoidance. 

· Discovered an unconventional striatal “direct pathway” originating from Tshz1 neurons in the striosome, which represents punishment and drives negative reinforcement. 

· Discovered that anterior insular cortex projections to the brainstem nucleus tractus solitarii (aIC®NTS) regulate striatal dopamine release, thereby controlling motivational vigor. 

3. Cellular and circuit mechanisms regulating feeding behavior and metabolism

· Discovered that neurotensin neurons in the interstitial nucleus of the posterior limb of the anterior commissure (IPAC) control hedonic feeding, energy homeostasis and obesity. 

· Discovered that neurons in the brainstem area postrema mediate the function of circulating interleukin-6 (IL-6) to drive anorexia and body weight loss in cancer-associated cachexia.

1. Tao Yang, Kai Yu, Xian Zhang, Xiong Xiao, Xiaoke Chen, Yu Fu, Bo Li (2023) Plastic and stimulus-specific coding of salient events in the central amygdala. Nature, 616:510-519.

2. Alessandro Furlan, Alberto Corona, Sara Boyle, Radhashree Sharma, Rachel Rubino, Jill Habel, Eva Carlotta Gablenz, Jacqueline Giovanniello, Semir Beyaz, Tobias Janowitz, Stephen David Shea, Bo Li (2022) Neurotensin neurons in the extended amygdala control dietary choice and energy homeostasis. Nature Neuroscience, 25:1470-1480.

3. Hanfei Deng, Xiong Xiao, Tao Yang, Kimberly Ritola, Adam Hantman, Yulong Li, Z. Josh Huang, Bo Li (2021) A genetically defined insula-brainstem circuit selectively controls motivational vigor. Cell, 184:6344-6360.

4. Xian Zhang, Wuqiang Guan, Tao Yang, Alessandro Furlan, Xiong Xiao, Kai Yu, Xu An, William Galbavy, Charu Ramakrishnan, Karl Deisseroth, Kimberly Ritola, Adam Hantman, Miao He, Z Josh Huang, Bo Li (2021) Genetically defined amygdala-striatal circuits for valence-specific behaviors. Nature Neuroscience, 24:1586-1600.

5. Jacqueline Giovanniello, Sandra Ahrens, Kai Yu, Bo Li (2021) Sex-specific stress-related behavioral phenotypes and central amygdala dysfunction in a mouse model of 16p11.2 microdeletion. Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science, 1(1):59-69.

6. Jacqueline Giovanniello, Kai Yu, Alessandro Furlan, Gregory Thomas Nachtrab, Radhashree Sharma, Xiaoke Chen, Bo Li (2020) A central amygdala-globus pallidus circuit conveys unconditioned stimulus-related information and controls fear learning. The Journal of Neuroscience, 40(47): 9043-9054.

7. Xiong Xiao, Hanfei Deng, Alessandro Furlan, Tao Yang, Xian Zhang, Ga-Ram Hwang, Jason Tucciarone, Priscilla Wu, Miao He, Ramesh Palaniswamy, Charu Ramakrishnan, Kimberly Ritola, Adam Hantman, Karl Deisseroth, Pavel Osten, Z. Josh Huang, Bo Li (2020) A genetically defined compartmentalized striatal direct pathway for negative reinforcement. Cell, 183: 211-227.

8. Marcus Stephenson-Jones, Christian Bravo-Rivera, Sandra Ahrens, Alessandro Furlan, Xiong Xiao, Carolina Fernandes-Henriques, Bo Li (2020) Opposing contributions of GABAergic and glutamatergic ventral pallidal neurons to motivational behaviors. Neuron, 105: 921-933.

9. Xian Zhang, Bo Li (2018) Population coding of valence in the basolateral amygdala. Nature Communications, 9:5195. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07679-9.

10. Kai Yu, Sandra Ahrens, Xian Zhang, Hillary Schiff, Charu Ramakrishnan, Lief Fenno, Karl Deisseroth, Fei Zhao, Min-Hua Luo, Ling Gong, Miao He, Pengcheng Zhou, Liam Paninski, Bo Li (2017) Central amygdala controls learning in the lateral amygdala. Nature Neuroscience, 20:1680-1685.

11. Marcus Stephenson-Jones, Kai Yu, Sandra Ahrens, Jason M. Tucciarone, Aile N. van Huijstee, Luis A. Mejia, Mario A. Penzo, Lung-Hao Tai, Linda Wilbrecht, Bo Li (2016) A basal ganglia circuit for evaluating action outcomes. Nature, 539:289-293.

12. Sandra Ahrens, Santiago Jaramillo, Kai Yu, Sanchari Ghosh, Ga-Ram Hwang, Raehum Paik, Cary Lai, Miao He, Z. Josh Huang, Bo Li (2015) ErbB4 regulation of a thalamic reticular nucleus circuit for sensory selection. Nature Neuroscience, 18:104-111.

13. Mario A. Penzo, Vincent Robert, Jason Tucciarone, Dimitri De Bundel, Minghui Wang, Linda Van Aelst, Martin Darvas, Luis F. Parada, Richard Palmiter, Miao He, Z. Josh Huang, Bo Li (2015) The paraventricular thalamus controls a central amygdala fear circuit. Nature, 519:455-459.

14. Haohong Li, Mario A. Penzo, Hiroki Taniguchi, Charles D. Kopec, Z. Josh Huang, Bo Li (2013) Experience-dependent modification of a central amygdala fear circuit. Nature Neuroscience, 16:332-339.

15. Bo Li, Joaquin Piriz, Martine Mirrione, Chihye Chung, Christophe Proulx, Daniela Schulz, Fritz Henn, Roberto Malinow* (2011) Synaptic potentiation onto habenula neurons in the learned helplessness model of depression. Nature, 470: 535-539.

Email: libo@westlake.edu.cn

The Li Lab is recruiting a lab manager, research assistants, postdocs, assistant investigators, associate investigators, and investigators.