Liping Wang, Professor, Director

Brain Cognition and Brain Disease Institute (BCBDI), Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)

Shenzhen-Hong Kong Institute of Brain Science

1. dissecting the mechanisms of subcortical neural circuits involved in innate behaviours, including fear, feeding and sleeping, and the conflicts between these needs;

2. elucidating the structural and functional interaction between central nervous and peripheral systems under physiological and pathological conditions, and their comorbidity with mental disorders;

3. developing new research tools and technologies for fine behavioural identification and functional dissection of neural circuits.

Liping Wang received his Ph.D. in medical neuroscience from Charite -Universitatsmedizin Berlin with Prof. Helmut Kettenmann at the Department of Cellular Neurosciences, Max-Delbruck-Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in 2005 and did his postdoctoral work at the Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University with Prof. Karl Deisseroth from 2005 to 2008. Then he joined SIAT, working as associate professor, professor and vice director of Biomedical and Health Engineering Institute from 2009 to 2014. Since 2014, He has become the director of BCBDI, SIAT. He is the founder and director of Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Brain Connectome and Behavior, Shenzhen Key Lab of Neuropsychiatric Modulation. He served as the vice president of the Chinese Neuroscience Society, the director of Collaborative Innovation of Science and Technology Committee of Chinese Neuroscience Society, the director of Chinese Society for Cognitive Science, the chairman of Autonomic Nerve Professional Committee of Chinese Association for Physiological Sciences, and the president of Shenzhen Society for Neuroscience.

Selected publications

1. Xuemei Liu^#*; Juan La^#; Chuanliang Han^#; Hao Zhong; Kang Huang; Yuanming Liu; Xutao Zhu; Pengfei Wei; Liming Tan; Fuqiang Xu; Liping Wang^*. Neural circuit underlying individual differences in visual escapehabituation. Neuron. 2025,113,1–14

2. Jialin Ye^#; Yang Xu; Kang Huang; Xinyu Wang; Liping Wang^*; Feng Wang^*. Hierarchical behavioral analysis framework as a platform for standardized quantitative identification of behaviors. Cell Reports. 2025,44,115239

3. Xinyi Zhou^#, Qian Xiao^#, Yaohui Liu, Shuai Chen, Xirong Xu, Zhigang Zhang, yuchuan Hong, Jie Shao, Yuewen Chen, Yu Chen, Liping Wang^*, Fan Yang^* and jie Tu^*. Astrocyte-mediated regulation of BLA WFS1 neurons alleviates risk-assessment deficits in DSC1-N mice. Neuron. 2024,112, 2197–2217

4. Yu-Ting Tseng, Bernhard Schaefke, Pengfei Wei, Liping Wang^#*. Defensive responses: behaviour, the brain and the body. Nature Reivews Neuroscience. 2023, 10.1038/s41583-023-00736-3.

5. Qingqing Liu^#, Xing Yang^#, Moxuan Luo^#, Junying Su, Jinling Zhong, Xiaofen Li, Rosa H.M. Chan, Liping Wang^*.An iterative neural processing sequence orchestrates feeding. Neuron. 2023,11(10):1651-1665.e5.

6. Yu-Ting Tseng^#* , Binghao Zhao^#, Hui Ding^#, Lisha Liang, Bernhard Schaefke, Liping Wang^*. Systematic evaluation of a predator stress model of depression in mice using a hierarchical 3D-motion learning framework. Translational Psychiatry 13(2023):178.

7. Yu-Ting Tseng^#, Binghao Zhao^#, Shanping Chen^#, Jialin Ye, Jingjing Liu, Lisha Liang, Hui Ding, Bernhard Schaefke, Qin Yang, Lina Wang, Feng Wang, Liping Wang^*. The subthalamic corticotropin-releasing hormone neurons mediate adaptive REM-sleep responses to threat. Neuron. 2022, 110, 1-17.

8. Xianglian Jia, Shanping Chen, Xulin Li, Sijue Tao, Juan Lai, Haoran Liu, Kang Huang, Ye Tian, Pengfei Wei, Fan Yang, Zhonghua Lu, Zuxin Chen, Xin-an Liu, Fuqiang Xu, and Liping Wang^*. Divergent neurocircuitry dissociates two components of the stress response: glucose mobilization and anxiety-like behavior. Cell Reports. 41(2022):111586.

9. Cheng Zhong^#, Lulu Wang^#, Yi Cao, Chongyang Sun, Jianyu Huang, Xufang Wang, Suwan Pan, Shuyu He, Kang Huang, Zhonghua Lu, Fuqiang Xu, Yi Lu^*, Liping Wang^*. A neural circuit from the dorsal CA3 to the dorsomedial hypothalamus mediates balance between risk exploration and defense. Cell reports. 2022,41:5

10. Kang Huang^#, Yaning Han^#, Ke Chen, Hongli Pan, Gaoyang Zhao, Wenling Yi, Xiaoxi Li, Siyuan Liu, Pengfei Wei^*, Liping Wang^*. A hierarchical 3D-motion learning framework for animal spontaneous behavior mapping. Nature Communications. 2021, 7:2784.

Awards

1. A winner of Guangdong Ding Ying Science and Technology Award (2023)

2. The First Prize of Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Award (2018)

3. Chang Jiang Scholars Distinguished Professor (2017)

4. Ten Thousand Talent Program Leading Scientist (2016)

5. A winner of Distinguished Young Scholar programme (2014)