On 26 August 2024 Prof. Tak Pan Wong of Department of Psychiatry and the Douglas Research Centre, McGill University, visited City University and delivered a lecture describing his recent works in social neuroscience, an emerging field in neuroscience.

First, based on the mouse model and chronic tracking of dorsal CA1 hippocampal neuronal activity, his team observed more stable dorsal CA1 correlates of social interaction and social memory in chronic social defeat stress (CSDS) model. Such changes were absent in CSDS susceptible mice and accompanied by greater social memory impairments. He concluded that CSDS susceptibility may be supported by hippocampal social cognitive processes, reflected in diminished hippocampal representations of social information and a greater impairment in social memory. Prof. Wong also reported his work related to sex differences in processing of negative social valence (NSV) which has been linked to mood disorder susceptibility. His group developed social valence paradigms which demonstrated identity recognition in male mice regardless of social valence. In contrast, female mice did not show identity recognition following NSV paradigm.

Further investigation assisted by calcium imaging of dorsal CA1 neurons suggests the imprecise encoding of NSV may contribute to the heightened vulnerability to the social stress-related mood disorders in female subjects. After the lecture, Prof. Wong discussed with colleagues and addressed the questions from many enthusiastic research graduate students.