Wei Huang
Neuroscientist trained in Mauro Costa-Mattioli's memory lab at Baylor, first author of the study that showed mTORC2 is needed for long-term memory through control of the actin skeleton
Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (latest PubMed affiliation, 2017) · Department of Neuroscience and Memory and Brain Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine (Costa-Mattioli lab, 2011–2017)
Long-term memories need new proteins, and most memory work on mTOR had focused on mTORC1, the complex that drives protein synthesis. Wei Huang's 2013 Nature Neuroscience paper, with Mauro Costa-Mattioli as senior author, looked at the other complex, mTORC2. Deleting its essential partner Rictor in the mouse forebrain after birth lowered mTORC2 activity and selectively impaired long-term memory and the late, protein-dependent phase of long-term potentiation (LTP), the strengthening of synapses thought to store memories. Flies lacking TORC2 showed a similar long-term memory defect.
The team traced the problem to actin, the protein filaments that shape dendritic spines, the small knobs where synapses sit. Actin polymerisation was reduced in the mutant hippocampus, and restoring it rescued both late LTP and long-term memory. A compound that raised mTORC2 activity turned short-lasting LTP into the long-lasting form and improved memory in normal mice. The work showed that mTORC2, not only mTORC1, is needed to consolidate long-term memories.
Huang's PubMed record with Costa-Mattioli runs from 2011 to 2017 and includes a pharmacogenetic study showing mTORC1 is required for late LTP and memory storage (2011) and a 2016 eLife paper showing that translational control by eIF2alpha phosphorylation explains why adolescent mice are more sensitive to cocaine. A 2017 paper lists Huang at both Baylor and the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins. The current position could not be confirmed.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | A | mTORC2 controls actin polymerization required for consolidation of long-term memory HUA2013 First author: showed that forebrain mTORC2 loss impairs long-term memory and late LTP through reduced actin polymerisation, and that boosting mTORC2 enhances memory. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 2
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Wei Huang.
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- Krešimir Krnjević Neurophysiologist who helped identify glutamate and GABA as the brain's main excitatory and inhibitory transmitters and described slow modulatory actions of acetylcholine in the cortex.
- Mauro Costa-Mattioli Neuroscientist who studies how mTOR signaling and protein synthesis control learning, memory and brain function, including the role of mTORC2 in long-term memory.
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