Overview
Design thinking is everywhere in our lives. I met design thinking in the process of scientific research. During my position as a PhD student researcher, I studied visual neuroscience and had exposure to vision principles that are guiding design of visual systems. I used 3D printers and Arduino systems to develop experimental designs for Neuroscientists. I will guide you through how I met design in this portfolio.
research 1
In visual Neuroscience, we use mice to study neural mechanisms of visual object recognition behavior. To replace the traditional model that is time-consuming and training-intensive, I designed an user-friendly behavioral test in which I printed random 3D objects to allow interaction of mice with objects to measure visual response to the objects. In this project, 1) I designed objects with the use of 3D printer and use them for my behavioral experiments. 2) I designed the behavioral test paradigm for the mice to interact with the 3D-printed objects. 3) I created the codes to analyze mice’s positions and time spent in an open field arena. In this study, we discovered that sighted mice are able to visually discriminate the objects while the blind control group are not able to.
research 2
In Luke Sjulson Lab, I participated in a project to design behavioral boxes for studying neural mechanism underlying drug addiction. In the project, we needed a few behavioral boxes in which mice can poke their nose into the ports on the boxes where sensors are located to deliver rewards. These behavioral boxes allow users to use the Python codes to control the interface of Resberry Pi to communicate with the sensors in the boxes. The behavioral tasks are designed into 5 stages. Firstly, mice are required to poke to collect the rewards. Through training, mice are expected to poke and turn to left and right port to collect the reward in the target port. Depending on mice’s movement patterns, different stage of task is assigned. The whole system is automatic, once users hit run on the Python code, the task is assigned; mice movement is recorded and being analyzed in plots. This automatic process allows users to save time for other tasks.
research 3
To solve the problem of sex bias in depression research, I designed a social defeat model in mice that is sex-bias free to be used in the depression studies. In this project, I designed an easy method to allow users to use the chemogenetic approach, a brain manipulation approach to artificially activate male mice’s brain region for aggression response toward female mice. Users just need to inject the drug to the male aggressors 35 mins before use to achieve robust results (75% effectiveness). Male and female mice both equally demonstrated induced depression response as a result of social defeat. The defeated mice stay in the behavioral paradigm individually and interact with the aggressors in the home cage during the defeat sessions. Results were published in Scientific Reports (2017).
research 4
In this project, I designed the experiments that utilized simple weight drop to induce multiple doses of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) to the mouse brain. Results showed behavioral and molecular changes in the multiple-dose mTBI mice than in the single-dose mTBI mice. Results were published in Scientific Reports (2019).
storytelling 1
In 2020 January, I attended McGill’s Dubson Cup with five team members for pitching my startup idea of using the AI-incorporated voice interface to facilitate teaching of elementary school students in Canada. Our team won a semi-finalist in this competition.
storytelling 2
I had a Ted-like science talk in Montreal in Feb 2021. The topic covered my current research projects and will explain the evolution in studying approaches in Neuroscience that allow users as Neuroscience researchers to better solve problems.
authorship 1
I documented the evaluation of therapeutic options for patients and
health administrators to cope with dengue fever. It includes the
analysis of which strategies work better with which populations. It was
published in Taipei (2016) as a policymaking guide.
authorship 2
1. Wang, Y.-S., Hsieh, W., Chung, J.-R., Lan, T.-H. & Wang, Y. Repetitive mild traumatic brain injury alters diurnal locomotor activity and response to the light change in mice. Sci Rep 9, 14067 (2019).
2. Takahashi A, Chung J, Zhang S, Zhang H, Grossman Y , Aleyasin H, Flanigan, M, Pfau, M, Menard C, Dumitriu D, Hodes G, McEwen, B, Nestler E, Han M, Russo S. Establishment of a repeated social defeat stress model in female mice. Sci Rep 7, 12838 (2017).
3. Evaluation of the Safety and Potential Therapeutic Effects of Hydrogen-Rich Coral Calcium on Autoimmune Diseases. Min-Chung Shen, Jia-Ru Chung Chung, Kuang-Yih Wang et al. Evaluation of the Safety and Potential Therapeutic Effects of Hydrogen-Rich Coral Calcium on Autoimmune Diseases, 06 September 2022, PREPRINT (Version 1) available at Research Square [https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2018732/v1]