At Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Xinyue Cui is exploring, in the group of Einstein Professor Benjamin Judkewitz, how the brain coordinates competing basic needs such as food intake and communication. The project centres on how the nutritional state influences acoustic communication and which neural circuits control this adaptation. Dr. Cui, who moved to Berlin after graduating from Cornell University (USA), works with the transparent fish Danionella cerebrum, an organism particularly well suited for studying activity across the entire brain.
The project aims to identify which brain networks are involved in this behavioural adaptation and how they influence communication between the animals. In this way, it aims to provide new insights into fundamental mechanisms of behavioural control that are also relevant to biomedical research.