Chang Lab News

With the support of a Kavli Innovative Award and Kavli Postdoctoral fellowships, the lab of Rui Chang made substantial progress in understanding interoception - the body’s ability to sense changes within itself.

Qiancheng Zhao, PhD, neuroscientist at Yale University, was recognized for exploring how our brain senses internal states, such as blood pressure fluctuations, food digestion, and breathing rhythms in a process called interoception.

Yale research suggests that several neurodegerative diseases may originate not in the nervous system, but in the gut microbiome.

“This is the first time we actually know how different body signals are being represented through the vagal interoception system to the brain in a very precise and accurate manner,” says co-senior investigator Rui Chang, PhD. “We know that the brain can very precisely discriminate signals, but what is the biological reason for that discrimination?”