Dr. Li’s research is mainly focused on pathophysiology and experimental therapeutics of dystonia. He is also broadly interested in animal models of movement disorders and in molecular and cellular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity during development and learning. His lab’s expertise is to perform conditional mutagenesis in mouse where selected genes are altered in specific neurons or circuits in the brain and in defined period during animal’s development. This powerful approach allows Dr. Li and his co-workers to apply functional genomics and proteomics to understand the pathogenesis of neurological and psychiatric disease and to develop effective treatment.

As evidenced by his research paper published in the October 10, 2006 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Yuqing Li and his collaborators’ search for the root causes of one disease produced findings that may have implications for understanding a host of movement disorders, as well as give insight into motor learning in humans (read more).