Hey-Kyoung Lee

Hey-Kyoung Lee is a neuroscience professor at Johns Hopkins University. She studies cross-modal plasticity between visual and auditory systems.

Early life Lee's mother is a chemist and her father is a physicist.

Lee trained as a postdoc in the lab of Richard Huganir at Johns Hopkins University, with whom she had previously collaborated as a graduate student. Huganir and Lee ultimately devised with a three-stage model of AMPA receptor phosphorylation in synaptic plasticity. Later, as a biology professor at University of Maryland, Lee used nicotine in conjunction with an enzyme inhibiting drug to reduce the progression of Alzheimer's disease with minimal side effects.

Recent work Lee joined University of Maryland at College Park as an assistant professor of biology after completing her postdoctoral training. Lee teamed up with one of her colleagues, Patrick Kanold, to investigate whether or not cross-modal plasticity could occur upon the completion of early childhood. To induce cross-modal plasticity, Lee temporarily blinded mice, depriving them of all visible light in a dark chamber, leading to cross-modal recruitment in the auditory cortex. After a week in the dark chamber, Lee and her team found that there was a redistribution of the allocation of neurons in the auditory cortex corresponding to frequencies of sound. Lee's conclusions suggested that sensory deprivation can be used to aid adults with cochlear implants better process sound signals.

Awards Lee received the Sloan Research Fellowship in Neuroscience in 2004 through the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.