Yu-Chieh (David) is trained as a sensory neurobiologist studying the fundamental processes underlying all of the primary senses: vision, touch, hearing, and chemosensation, which are essential for organisms to perceive and interact with the world. His doctoral research focused on how internal pharyngeal taste neurons mediate insect feeding behaviors, using Drosophila as a model organism. He generated a systematic chemoreceptor-to-neuron map of pharyngeal taste organs in adult Drosophila and performed genetic manipulation of different subsets of pharyngeal taste neurons to uncover their functional roles in regulating feeding behaviors. He’s worked to apply a newly developed trans-Tango circuit tracing technique to explore the second-order taste circuits in the fly brain.
Additionally, he’s studied how synaptotagmin isoforms regulate the patterned spontaneous activity in early developing rat retinas (so-called retinal waves), thought to play an essential role in many retinal developmental processes, including eye-specific retinal projections to central brain targets. He’s applied immunohistochemistry, single-cell RT-qPCR, and calcium imaging to study the expression and function of different synaptotagmin isoforms in early retinal development.