医学创新论坛第94期

时间：2026年4月8日（周三）下午16:00

地点：首都医科大学基础科研楼北楼二层科创汇堂

主持人：

梅林

首都医学科学创新中心

报告人：

毕国强

教授

中国科学技术大学

深圳先进技术研究院

报告题目：

Deconstructing the nervous system across scales: from synapse to brain and body

摘要：

The brain is a complex system spanning multiple spatiotemporal scales, from protein molecules organizing into intricate nano-machines in the synapse to many neurons interconnected via synapses to form circuits across the brain. In the past decade, we have employed and developed various imaging approaches to resolve this complexity across scales.

At the microscopic scale, we developed a correlative light-electron microscopy (CLEM) method and an in situ cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) pipeline to visualize ultrastructural features of excitatory and inhibitory synapses in their native state, revealing unique mesophasic organization of neurotransmitter receptors. We then developed AI-based IsoNet to improve the precision of cryo-ET reconstruction and a time-resolved cryo-ET method to capture structural intermediates during evoked synaptic transmission. With these tools, we discovered the “kiss-shrink-run” mechanism of synaptic vesicle fusion and recycling.

At the mesoscopic scale, we have developed Volumetric Imaging with Synchronized on-the-fly-scan and Readout (VISoR), an ultra-high speed 3D imaging technique that enables visualization of the whole-brain structure of the rhesus monkey at micron-resolution, revealing unexpected projection and complex arborization patterns of individual thalamocortical axons that may underlie efficient information processing in the brain. Beyond the brain, we have developed a blockface-VISoR system to achieve high-speed imaging of the whole mouse body, unraveling previously unattainable features of peripheral nerve fibers and its interaction with other tissues throughout the entire body.

By deconstructing neuronal synapses and networks, new imaging approaches are poised to drive structure-informed understanding of physiology at both cellular and systems levels.

报告人简介：

Dr. Bi is a Xinchuang Professor of Neurobiology and Biophysics and Changjiang Scholar at the University of Science and Technology of China, and Director of Interdisciplinary Center for Brain Information at Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He received his B.S. in physics at Peking University, Ph.D. in biophysics at UC Berkeley and postdoctoral training at UCSD. Before joining USTC, he was a tenured Associate Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. His research interest is in the cross-scale architecture and dynamics of neuronal systems, especially those related to plasticity and learning. His early work revealed computational rules and cellular mechanisms of spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP). In recent years, his team has combined cryogenic electron tomography with correlative photonics techniques to investigate in situ structure and dynamics inside neuronal synapses, and developed mesoscale imaging approaches to map system-wide network architecture from brain to body.

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