Yung Wing Ho 容永豪教授

  • Fellowship in 1990 at University of Oxford

Prof. YUNG Wing Ho graduated from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in biology and biochemistry with first class honors. He was a recipient of the Commonwealth Scholarship and the Croucher Foundation Fellowship that supported his DPhil study and post-doctoral training in the University of Oxford, under the supervision of Prof. Julian Jack, FRS. He is currently Professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences and the Director of the Gerald Choa Neuroscience Centre, CUHK. He had received the Master Teacher of the Year award, Faculty of Medicine and the Research Excellence Award, CUHK. He has broad research interests in understanding the functions and mechanisms of the nervous system in health and in disease, emphasizing the underlying neural circuits and the roles of neuroplasticity. This is achieved by employing a multitude of cutting-edge neuroscience and computational techniques.

Research interests

  1. Neural mechanism of motor learning. The capability to learn novel, complex motor skills is a remarkable ability, and essential for daily lives and survival. By applying multi-array electrophysiological recording, 2-photon imaging and machine-learning algorithms in novel motor paradigms, we probe the mechanisms underlying the emergence of neural circuits in the brain encoding motor memory.
  2. Neural circuits underlying cognitive functions. We aim to decipher the neural circuits and mechanisms underlying important cognitive functions. Especially we are interested in cognitive flexibility, which underlies adaptive behaviours like switching of strategy to solve a problem. Impairment of cognitive flexibility is related to various conditions such as compulsive behaviour and anxiety. Techniques including neuronal tract tracing, optogenetics and network analysis are employed to tackle the questions.
  3. Parkinson’s and other degenerative diseases. Both motor and non-motor (emotional, cognitive) malfunctions are common in Parkinsonism and other neurodegenerative diseases. We are interested in the origin of these deficits, especially at the network level, and exploration of their treatments including interventional approach such as brain stimulation techniques.