Dongsheng Xiao

Amidst a global pandemic with unpredictable lockdowns and varying quarantine guidelines around the world, no other time in recent history has compelled more urgent need to interrogate the neural mechanisms of social isolation induced mental disorders than now.

Social isolation is universally aversive to social species, with behavioral and neuroendocrine changes associated with mental and physical health consequences including depression, shortened lifespan, and increased rates of cancer.

Dr. Dongsheng Xiao’s immediate goal is to establish new ways to map social isolation-induced aberrant neural connectivity with machine learning-based phenotyping of behavioral abnormalities, developing new expertise beyond my previously acquired skills and leading to an increase in productivity and scope of research.

Dongsheng has been a MD-PhD mainly engaged in the research and treatment of Parkinson’s disease and other functional brain disorders. In Dr. Murphy’s lab, Dongsheng established new procedures for mapping connections between discrete cortical locations and sub-cortical brain structures. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they created a 3D virtual mouse that can generate synthetic training data for behavioral analysis.

For an up-to-date list of publications by Dongsheng, please see Google Scholar.