Ying Zhang, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow

Office: 46-5081

Telephone: (617) 324-5122

Email: yzhang00@mit.edu

bio

I received my Ph.D. (advisor: R. Clay Reid) from the Department of Neurobiology in Harvard Medical School.   My Ph.D. thesis, "Where is it? Deriving stimulus location from the responses of visual neurons," examined how neuronal decisions in a vernier task might be accounted by single-neuron responses.   I then studied behavioral and neuronal co-processing of stereopsis, motion parallax and shading as visual depth cues, with both non-human and human primates (advisor: Peter H. Schiller).

research interests

Previous studies have shown that people with developmental dyslexia, an unexplained reading deficit that affects 5-10% of the population, also exhibit deficits in visual motion processing.   Because the visual impairment can be detected at a much earlier age than problems in language or reading, I am interested in combining behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques to study such deficits in dyslexics.   Specifically, I would like to test the hypothesis that dyslexia reflects a deficit of the magnocellular visual pathway by examining their visual functions associated with the magnocellular pathway.

selected publications

Zhang, Y. and Schiller, P.H. (submitted). The role of stimulus movement velocity on motion parallax based depth perception in rhesus monkeys.

Weiner, V.S., Schiller, P.H., and Zhang, Y. (2006). How effective are disparity and motion parallax cues for depth perception in monkeys and humans? VSS Abstract, 867.

Zhang, Y. and Reid, R.C. (2005). Single-neuron responses and neuronal decisions in a vernier task. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102(9), 3507-12.

Zhang, Y. and Schiller, P.H. (2005). The effect of the number of visual objects in visual search tasks in non-human primates. Society for Neuroscience Abstract, 165.14.

Zhang, Y., Weiner, V.S., Slocum, W.M., and Schiller, P.H. (2005). Depth from shading and disparity in humans and monkeys. VSS Abstract, 408

Zhang, Y. and Schiller, P.H. (2004). Behavioral assessment of Depth perception based on motion parallax in the non-human primate. Society for Neuroscience Abstract, 865.11.

Weiner, V.S., Zhang, Y., and Schiller, P.H. (2004). Interactive visual processing of stereopsis and motion parallax. Society for Neuroscience Abstract, 865.12.

Bosking, W.H., Zhang, Y., Schofield, B., and Fitzpatrick, D. (1997). Orientation selectivity and the arrangement of horizontal connections in tree shrew striate cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 17(6), 2112-27.

Rasmusson, R.L., Zhang, Y., Campbell, D.L., Comer, M.B., Castellino, R.C., Liu, S., and Strauss, H.C. (1995). Molecular mechanisms of K+ channel blockade: 4-aminopyridine interaction with a cloned cardiac transit K+(Kv1.4) channel. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, 382, 11-22.

Rasmusson, R.L., Zhang, Y., Campbell, D.L., Comer, M.B., Castellino, R.C., Liu, S., and Strauss, H.C. (1995). Bi_stable block of a cloned cardiac transit K+ channel (Kv1.4) by 4-aminopyridine. Journal of Physiology, 485(pt 1), 59-71.

Comer, M.B., Campbell, D.C., Rasmusson, R.L., Lamson, D.R., Morales, M.J., Zhang, Y., and Strauss, H.C. (1994). Cloning and characterization of an Ito-like channel from ferret ventricle. Americal Journal of Physiology (Heart Circ Physiol 36), 267, H1383-H1395.

Staddon, J.E.R. and Zhang, Y. (1991). On assignment of credit problem in operant learning. In: Neural Network Models of Conditioning and Action. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Hillsdale, NJ, pp. 279-293.

Staddon, J.E.R. and Zhang, Y. (1989). Response selection in operant learning. Behavioral Processes, 10, 189-197.