Energetics of Integrating the Brain and Body

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.

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.