Dayu Lin facts for kids

Dayu Lin is a scientist who studies the brain. She is a Professor at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. Dr. Lin is known for finding out how certain brain parts control aggressive behavior in mice. Her lab now studies how the brain controls natural social actions, especially fighting and defending oneself.

Early Life and Education

Dayu Lin was born in Shanghai, China. She went to Fudan University in 1997 to study biology. For her college project, she researched Alzheimer's Disease, which affects memory.

After getting her science degree in 2001, Dr. Lin went to Duke University. There, she studied neurobiology, which is the study of the nervous system and brain. She worked with Professor Lawrence Katz. She explored how the brain processes smells. Smell is very important for animals to understand their surroundings and other animals.

Dr. Lin studied how the olfactory bulb, a part of the brain for smell, reacts to different social smells. She found that specific brain cells react to single smells. For example, she found a smell in male mouse urine that makes it more attractive to female mice. Her work showed that the brain combines simple smells to understand complex ones.

In 2005, Dr. Lin moved to California. She did more research at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She worked with Professor David J. Anderson. Her goal was to understand the brain circuits behind natural social behaviors, especially aggression in mice.

In the Anderson Lab, Dr. Lin made an important discovery. She found that a part of the brain called the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMHvl) controls aggressive behavior. She learned that if she used light to turn on these brain cells, male mice would attack other mice or even objects. If she turned these cells off, the mice would not be aggressive. She also found these cells were quiet during mating. Dr. Lin finished this research in 2010.

Career and Research

In 2010, Dr. Lin became a professor at the New York University Langone Medical Center. Her lab studies how brain circuits control natural social behaviors in mice. They focus on aggression and defensive actions.

Dr. Lin's discovery about the VMHvl's role in aggression is key to her lab's work. They use special tools to study other brain areas connected to the VMHvl. They also look at how aggression works differently in male and female brains. They study the chemical messengers in these brain circuits.

Brain Circuits for Aggression

After finding the VMHvl's role, Dr. Lin and her team wanted to know how it creates aggressive behavior. They found brain cells that became active when a male mouse investigated or attacked another male. These cells also reacted to how far away the aggressor was and how fast the animal moved during an attack.

Dr. Lin's team found that the VMHvl can process information from the environment. This information, like movement and sensory details, helps drive and keep aggression going in mice.

Next, they studied how mice choose to attack. They found that the VMHvl is vital for a mouse to seek out aggression. Turning off this brain area with light reduced aggression-seeking. Turning it on increased aggression-seeking and made future attacks stronger. They saw that VMHvl neurons track learned aggression-seeking behavior.

Dr. Lin's team then found a specific brain pathway. This pathway goes from the VMHvl to another area called the lateral periaqueductal grey (lPAG). This pathway helps turn the VMHvl's signals into aggressive actions. They believe the lPAG activity represents a simpler code from the VMHvl that controls aggression-related movements.

Defence Behavior

Dr. Lin had noticed in her earlier work that VMH activation could also lead to defensive behavior. So, she wanted to find out which VMH neurons control defense. She discovered that certain cells, called estrogen receptorα expressing cells, became active during defense.

When these cells were turned off using light, animals could not defend themselves well when attacked. Further studies showed that specific cells in the front part of the VMHvl were active during defense, but not aggression. This suggests these cells are important for how mice defend themselves against others.

Awards and Honors

• 2016 Irma T. Hirschi Career Scientist Award - New York University
• 2013 McKnight Scholar Award
• 2012 Janett Rosenberg Trubatch Career Development Award
• 2012 Alfred P. Sloan Fellow
• 2011 Klingenstein Neuroscience Fellow
• 2006 Capranica Prize in Neuroethology