Biography

LI Anan , Ph.D., is a professor, a specially appointed professor of Jiangsu Province, a doctoral supervisor, and the director of the Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Brain Disease Bioinformatics. Professor LI Anan has long been engaged in research in sensory neurobiology, particularly in the field of olfaction, during his academic and professional career. He has accumulated extensive theoretical and practical experience in areas such as extracellular electrophysiological recording and animal olfactory behavior. His main research directions include: the neural mechanisms of odor perception encoding in the olfactory center, the pathogenesis of olfactory-related brain diseases, the neural circuits and regulatory mechanisms of olfactory-related behaviors, and the central neural mechanisms of olfactory function decline in aging. He has published over 30 research papers as the first author or corresponding author, with several articles appearing in prestigious journals in neurobiology and physiology such as PNAS (2011, 2020), Nat Commun (2025), Cell Reports (2022, 2023), npj Parkinson's Disease (2021), Aging Cell (2022), and J Neurosci (2014, 2015, 2017, 2019).

Publications

Representative publications:

1.Chi Geng*, Ruochen Li*, Shan Li*, Penglai Liu, Yuxin Peng, Changyu Liu, Zhen Wang, Hongxing Zhang, Anan Li^#. Noradrenergic inputs from the locus coeruleus to anterior piriform cortex and the olfactory bulb modulate olfactory outputs. Nat Commun. 2025.

2.Fengjiao Chen*, Ao He*, Qingnan Tang, Shan Li, Xingyu Liu, Zhaoyang Yin, Quanbei Yao, Yiqun Yu^#, Anan Li^#. Cholecystokinin-expressing superficial tufted cells modulate odour representation in the olfactory bulb and olfactory behaviours. J Physiol. 2024, 602(14): 3519-3543.

3.Penglai Liu*, Cheng Gao*, Jing Wu*, Tingting Wu, Ying Zhang, Changyu Liu, Changcheng Sun^#, Anan Li^#. Negative valence encoding in the lateral entorhinal cortex during aversive olfactory learning. Cell Rep. 2023. 42(10): 113204.

4.Jing Wu*, Penglai Liu*, Chi Geng, Changyu Liu, Qiuju Zhu^#, Anan Li^#. Principal neurons in the olfactory cortex mediated bidirectional modulation of seizures. J Physiol. 2023, 601(16): 3557-3584.

5.Tingting Wu*, Shan Li*, Deliang Du, Ruochen Li, Penglai Liu, Zhaoyang Yin, Hongxing Zhang, Yuehua Qiao^#, Anan Li^#. Olfactory-auditory sensory integration in the lateral entorhinal cortex. Prog Neurobiol. 2023, 221: 102399.

6.Dejuan Wang*, Jing Wu*, Penglai Liu*, Xiaowen Li, Jiaxin Li, Miao He, Anan Li^#. VIP interneurons regulate olfactory bulb output and contribute to odor detection and discrimination. Cell Rep. 2022, 38(7): 110383.

7.Xiaoyan Zhou*, Changjiang Ying*, Bin Hu*, Yusheng Zhang, Tian Gao, Yandong Zhu, Nan Wang, Anan Li^#, Yuanjian Song^#. Receptor for advanced glycation end products aggravates cognitive deficits in type 2 diabetes through binding of C-termianl AAs 2-5 to mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase3 (MMK3) and facilitation of MEKK3-MEKK3-MKK3-p38 module assembly. Aging Cell. 2022, 21(2): e13543.

8.Fengjiao Chen*, Wei Liu*, Penglai Liu, Zhen Wang, You Zhou, Xingyu Liu, Anan Li^#. a-Synuclein aggregation in the olfactory bulb induces olfactory deficits by perturbing granule cells and granular-mitral synaptic transmission. npj Parkinsons Dis. 2021, 7(1): 114.

9.Dejuan Wang*, Xiaojie Wang*, Penglai Liu, Siqi Jing, Han Du, Lingzhi Zhang, Fan Jia, Anan Li^#. Serotonergic afferents from the dorsal raphe decrease the excitability of pyramidal neurons in the anterior piriform cortex. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2020, 117(6):3239-3247.

10.Dejuan Wang*, Penglai Liu*, Xingfeng Mao*, Zheng Zhou, Tiantian Cao, Jinshan Xu, Changcheng Sun, Anan Li^#. Task-demand-dependent neural representation of odor information in the olfactory bulb and posterior piriform cortex. J Neurosci. 2019, 39(50): 10002-10018.

11.Anan Li*, Ethan Guthman*, Wilder Doucette, Diego Restrepo. Behavioral status influences the dependence of odorant-induced change in firing on pre-stimulus firing rate. J Neurosci. 2017, 37(7): 1835-1852.

12.Anan Li, David H Gire, Diego Restrepo^#. Υ spike-field coherence in a population of olfactory bulb neurons differentiates between odors irrespective of associated outcome. J Neurosci. 2015, 35(14): 5808-5822.

13.Anan Li, David H Gire, Thomas Bozza, Diego Restrepo^#. Precise detection of direct glomerular input duration by the olfactory bulb. J Neurosci. 2014; 34(48): 16058-16064.

14.Anan Li, Ling Gong, Fuqiang Xu^#. Brain-state-independent neural representation of peripheral stimulation in rat olfactory bulb. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2011; 108: 5087-5092. (From the cover, and see commentary: PNAS, 108: 5475-5476).