- Speaker
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Li Ye, Ph.D.Professor, Department of Neuroscience, Scripps Research Institute
The 2026 lecture series in neuroscience and autism science, titled “Brain and Body: Communication and Connection,” will explore how the brain and body influence each other’s functions through continuous information exchange. Talks will emphasize interoceptive and visceral sensory pathways as well as the molecular, cellular and circuit mechanisms that mediate these bidirectional interactions. From gut mucosa and adipose tissue to bone and immune pathways, speakers will provide insights into how the brain-body communication supports adaptive function and contributes to health and disease.
2026 Lecture Series Themes
Biology – Folding the Future: The Structural Biology Revolution
Mathematics and Computer Science – Randomness
Neuroscience and Autism Science – Brain and Body: Communication and Connection
Presidential Lectures are a series of free public colloquia spotlighting groundbreaking research across four themes: neuroscience and autism science, physics, biology, and mathematics and computer science. These curated, high-level scientific talks feature leading scientists and mathematicians and are designed to foster discussion and drive discovery within the New York City research community. We invite those interested in these topics to join us for this weekly lecture series.
The brain performs extraordinary computations while consuming remarkably little energy, yet we still know surprisingly little about how energy availability shapes brain function.
In this Presidential Lecture, Li Ye will discuss his research program, which seeks to understand the brain by investigating how neural circuits monitor, allocate, and utilize energy throughout the body. By combining innovative imaging technologies, chemical biology and neural circuit mapping, he and his colleagues have uncovered previously unknown pathways linking metabolism, behavior and brain activity. These discoveries reveal fundamental principles of brain-body communication and may ultimately provide new opportunities to understand and treat obesity, diabetes, neurodegenerative disorders and other diseases shaped by metabolic dysfunction.
About the Speaker
Ye received his B.S. from Tsinghua University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he was also a visiting student at the Broad Institute and MIT. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, he joined Scripps Research in 2018. Ye has received many honors, including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the NIH Transformative Research Award, the Society for Neuroscience Young Investigator Award and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Ben Barres Award. His lab integrates neuroscience, molecular metabolism and chemical biology to study the nervous system and peripheral tissues as a unified network, with a particular focus on energetics as a fundamental mechanism underlying their interactions in health and disease.