Position
Lecturer

Qualifications
BMedSc PhD (USyd)

Teaching

Jin teaches neuroscience and anatomy to undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Research interests

In the mammalian brain, numerous feedforward, horizontal and feedback connections are found between visual areas. Feedback projections are thought to be important for visual attention and perceptual grouping in the lower-order visual areas (e.g. primary visual cortex). The postero-temporal visual cortex is considered as one of the highest higher-order pattern processing visual areas, and it is reciprocally connected with the primary visual cortex. Thus, we are interested in the role of feedback projections from the postero-temporal visual cortex on the responses of cells in the primary visual cortex. The techniques we use are standard extracellular electrophysiological recording technique and cooling technique.

My current research, in collaboration with Dr Dario Protti (Discipline of Physiology) is working on the retina (in the eye). Specifically we are interested in the physiological and morphological properties of ganglion cells. The techniques employed are patch clamping and dynamic clamping. http://www.physiol.usyd.edu.au/~dariop/

This is a ganglion cell which we patched. The cell is filled with a fluorescent dye (Lucifer yellow) and the picture is taken under the fluorescent microscope. The cell body is located at the centre. White lines are the dendrites of the cell.

Publications:

• Bardy C†, Huang JY†, Wang C, FitzGibbon T and Dreher B. (2009) ‘Top-down’ influences of ipsilateral or contralateral postero-temporal visual cortices on the extra-classical receptive fields of neurons in cat’s area V1. Neuroscience 158: 951-968.
• †Co-first authors
• Wang C, Bardy C, Huang JY, FitzGibbon T and Dreher B. (2009) Contrast dependence of centre and surround integration in primary visual cortex of the cat. Journal of Vision 9 (1): 1-15.
• Huang JY, Wang C and Dreher B. (2007) The effects of reversible inactivation of postero-temporal visual cortex on neuronal activities in cat’s area 17. Brain Research 1138: 111-28.
• Bardy C, Huang JY, Wang C, FitzGibbon T and Dreher B. (2006) ‘Simplification’ of responses of complex cells in cat striate cortex: suppressive surrounds and ‘feedback’ inactivation. Journal of Physiology 574 (3): 731-750.

During April of 2009, a UNSW Medical Science student interviewed Jin. The story covered the activities Jin performed on the 22nd of April (World-Wide Day in Science) among other things. If interested you can click on the following link to view the story. http://wwdis2009.didymodesigns.com.au/?p=scientist&id=1390&v=pub&pg=3

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