Sid Kuo, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Department of Neuroscience

E-MAIL: [email protected]

Research Interests:

How do sensory circuits extract and represent behaviorally relevant signals from the environment? We investigate this question in the mammalian retina, the thin neural tissue that lines the back of the eye. We use the retina as a model system because its cell types and circuits are well-defined and we can maintain the sensitivity of the retinal circuitry to its natural input (patterns of light) in ex-vivo preparations that allow good experimental access to the different elements of the circuit. We use a combination of patch-clamp electrophysiology and two-photon microscopy in transgenic mice to study how the properties of retinal cells and synapses give rise to the visual computations that underlie how we see. A current focus of the lab is to understand how Müller cells, the primary glial cell type of the retina, shape the function of retinal synapses.


Selected Publications:

  • Chiang PP, Kuo SP, Newman EA. Cellular mechanisms mediating activity-dependent extracellular space shrinkage in the retina. Glia. 2022 Oct;70(10):1927-1937.Kuo SP, Chiang PP, Nippert AR, Newman EA. Spatial Organization and Dynamics of the Extracellular Space in the Mouse Retina. J Neurosci. 2020 Oct 7;40(41):7785-7794.
  • Kuo SP, Chiang PP, Nippert AR, Newman EA. Spatial organization and dynamics of the extracellular space in the mouse retina. J Neurosci. 2020;40(41):7785-7794.
  • Kuo SP, Schwartz GW, Rieke F. Nonlinear spatiotemporal integration by electrical and chemical synapses in the retina. Neuron. 2016 Apr 20;90(2):320-32
  • Della Santina L*, Kuo SP*, Yoshimatsu T*, Okawa H, Suzuki SC, Hoon M, Tsuboyama K, Rieke F, Wong ROL. Glutamatergic monopolar interneurons provide a novel pathway of excitation in the mouse retina. Curr Biol. 2016 Aug 8;26(15):2070-2077. * co-first authors
  • Kuo SP, Lu HW, Trussell LO. Intrinsic and synaptic properties of vertical cells of the mouse dorsal cochlear nucleus. J Neurophysiol. 2012 Aug;108(4):1186-98.
  • Kuo, SP, Trussell LO. Spontaneous spiking and synaptic depression underlie noradrenergic control of feed-forward inhibition. Neuron. 2011 Jul 28;71(2):306-18.
Picture of Sid Kuo