Liqun Luo: Signaling Pathways and Molecular Codes for the Assembly of Neural Circuits

Stanford Professor Liqun Luo's laboratory investigates the mechanisms by which neural circuits in the brain are assembled during development and how this neuroarchitecture enables their functions throughout life. During the past 30 years his work has provided technical advances that enabled the establishment of roles for specific proteins in the formation of synaptic connections between individual neurons. In this episode I talk with Liqun about experiments using these technologies that revealed specific molecular codes on the surface of neurons that mediate either adhesive or repulsive interactions and thereby instruct synaptic partner matching during development neural circuits. Recent research in his laboratory has shown that the three-dimensional complexity of neural circuits in the olfactory system is achieved by serial reduction to one-dimensional projections. Professor Luo is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and author of "Principles of Neurobiology" a textbook widely used for undergraduate and graduate neuroscience courses.

LINKS

Luo lab webpage:

https://luolab.stanford.edu/

Review article on the architectures of neural circuits:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8916593/pdf/nihms-1746805.pdf

Article in Science on dimensionality reduction:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12614222/pdf/nihms-2120734.pdf

Article in Nature on repulsions and synaptic partner matching:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12804089/pdf/41586_2025_Article_9768.pdf

Article in Nature on altering an olfactory circuit by manipulating cell surface molecular codes:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12804075/pdf/41586_2025_Article_9769.pdf