In 1994 I received my PhD degree from Beijing Normal University, P.R.China, advised
by Prof. Xu Rumei. My thesis describes the post-landing hostplant-selection
behavior of whiteflies, using electrical penetration graph (EPG)
as the main approaching method. During and after my PhD, I worked
in the Department of Entomology, Wageningen Agricultural University,
The Netherlands, supervised by Prof. J.C. van Lenteren and Dr.
W.F. Tjallingii. While I was studying the feeding behavior of whiteflies,
I became interested in insect?s chemical communication in general.
In 1996 I came to Hansson lab in Lund University, Sweden as a postdoctoral
fellow. In his lab my research was focused on the neural basis
of pheromonal communication in male Agrotis segetum, the turnip
moth. In short, I used intracellular recording and staining methods
to investigate how the projection (output) neurons (PN) in the
male antennal lobes (AL), the primary olfactory center that is
analogous to the olfactory bulb (OB) in vertebrates, process the female sex pheromones. Using the same technique, I also studied the protocerebral
processing of olfactory information in the same species. Continuing
along this line of research, I came to Hildebrand lab in Tucson,
Arizona in 1999 as a Research Associate. I have mainly worked in
a project funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) characterizing
the interactions of different neural elements in the AL of male
hawk moth, Manduca sexta. One of the major experiments I have conducted
is to use dual-intracellular recording and staining methods to
study the coherence of PN firing. Furthermore, to expand the scope
of my research, I participate the multi-unit team led by Dr. T.
A. Christensen. With this newer technique, we study the population
response of AL neurons to pheromonal as well as non-pheromonal
odors. The goal is to understand how the moth brain can cope with
the unlimited environmental odor space and help the animal to make
a right behavioral decision. Hopefully the knowledge we gain from
a simple moth brain will shed some lights on the functions of higher brains.?
Selected publications
T.A.Christensen, H. Lei and J.G. Hildebrand, 2003. Coordination
of central odor representations through transient, non-oscillatory
synchronization of glomerular output neurons. Proceedings of National
Academy of Sciences 100(19): 11076-11081.
H. Lei, T.A. Christensen and J.G. Hildebrand, 2002. Local inhibition
modulates odor-evoked synchronization of glomerulus-specific output
neurons. Nature Neuroscience 5(6): 557-565.
H. Lei, S. Anton and B.S. Hansson, 2001. Olfactory protocerebral
pathways processing sex pheromone and plant odor information in
the male moth Agrotis segetum. J. Comp. Neurology 432: 356-370.?
T.A.Christensen, V.M. Pawlowski, H. Lei and J.G. Hildebrand, 2000.
Multi-unit recordings reveal context-dependent modulation of synchrony
in odor-specific neural ensembles. Nature Neuroscience 3(9): 927-931. H. Lei and B.S. Hansson, 1999. Central processing of pulsed pheromone signals
by antennal lobe neurons in the male moth Agrotis segetum. J. Neurophysiol.
81: 1113-1122.
H. Lei, W.F. Tjallingii and J.C. van Lenteren, 1998. Probing and
feeding characteristics of the greenhouse whitefly in association
with host-plant acceptance and whitefly strains. Entomol. Exp.
Appl. 88: 73-80.
ics of the greenhouse whitefly in association with host-plant acceptance
and whitefly strains. Entomol. Exp. Appl. 88: 73-80.
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