Hu discovered the anatomical and molecular targets of ketamine's fast-acting antidepressant effects to be localized to the lateral habenular circuits in rodents.

[4] Under the mentorship of Corey S. Goodman, Hu explored the role of the plexin receptor and the Rho family GTPases in central nervous system development in Drosophila.

[7] Interestingly, PlexB inhibits Rac from binding downstream interactors while at the same time enhancing RhoA activity, altogether driving axon guidance.

[7] In further work, Hu found that CrossGAP, a GTPase-activating protein, is responsible for regulating Rac dependent-cytoskeletal changes during axon guidance in Drosophila.

[6] Following her PhD, Hu pursued her postdoctoral work under the mentorship of Julius Zhu and Roberto Malinow at the University of Virginia.

[6] In 2004, Hu moved to the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and then to the University of California, San Diego in 2006, to continue working under the mentorship of Malinow.

[4] In 2015, Hu was recruited to become a professor and senior investigator at the QuiShi Academy for Advanced Studies within the Medical School of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China.

[11] An important contribution that Hu and her team made to the field was the establishment of reliable tests to assess dominance rank in a hierarchy.

[14] Hu and her colleagues then explored the potential of using ketamine to target the burst firing/hyperactivity in lateral habenula neurons that was leading to depressive phenotypes.

[15] The blocking of LHb hyperactivity appears to disinhibit downstream monoaminergic reward centers thereby exerting antidepressant effects on habenular circuitry.