Yi Gu

Dr. Yi Gu serves as an Investigator leading the Spatial Navigation and Memory Unit within the Division of Intramural Research at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health. She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees from Tsinghua University and completed her Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University under Dr. Richard Huganir, focusing on neurotransmitter receptor trafficking. Dr. Gu conducted postdoctoral research with Dr. David Tank at Princeton University, investigating medial entorhinal cortex function during spatial navigation using in vivo imaging and virtual reality paradigms.

Her research program centers on understanding the neural basis of spatial navigation and memory, with particular emphasis on the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC). The lab employs advanced in vivo optical approaches combined with virtual reality behavioral paradigms in mouse models to investigate how spatial information is represented, computed, and stored in neural circuits. Key research areas include:

• MEC circuit mechanisms for spatial representation
• Encoding of spatial memory in the MEC
• MEC interactions with other brain regions
• MEC dysfunction in Alzheimer's Disease

Recent publications demonstrate the lab's leadership in uncovering how the entorhinal spatial map integrates visual landmarks, how multisensory information is processed in the MEC, and how consistent spatial maps support memory formation. The lab's work bridges molecular, cellular, and systems neuroscience to address fundamental questions about spatial cognition and its impairment in neurological disorders.

Dr. Gu maintains active collaborations with researchers at MIT, Washington University School of Medicine, and Academia Sinica in Taiwan. Her lab currently includes multiple postdoctoral fellows, postbaccalaureate researchers, and international collaborators working at the intersection of neuroscience, engineering, and computational modeling.