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In 2025, the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research welcomes two new Research Group Leaders: Dr. Philipp Brand and Dr. Gregor Schuhknecht. Their arrival expands the institute’s research scope, introducing new perspectives and model systems to study how brains and behaviors evolve and function.
Evolutionary Neuroscience and Behavior
Philipp Brand will establish the Evolutionary Neuroscience and Behavior Group as of October 2025. His team will explore how evolution and ecology shape neural circuits and behaviors, focusing on the diversification of reproductive behaviors in Drosophila fruit flies. Using cutting-edge neurogenetic, ethological, and genomic tools, Brand’s research aims to uncover the genetic and neural bases of behavioral variation across species.
“The vast diversity of animal behaviors we can observe in nature offers an exciting opportunity to understand how evolution tinkers with nervous systems to drive behavioral innovation”, says Brand. “By combining evolutionary biology, circuit neuroscience, and behavioral ecology we hope to reveal how genes and neurons interact to generate behavioral diversity.”
Philipp Brand studied Biology, Genetics and Evolutionary Biology in Düsseldorf and Bochum. He received his PhD from the University of California, Davis, where he investigated the genetic basis underlying the evolution of the sense of smell in insects and how it mediates the diversification of sexual signaling and speciation in orchid bees in the group of Santiago Ramírez. For his Postdoc, Brand worked with Vanessa Ruta at the Rockefeller University, New York, where he studied the role of environmental factors in controlling species-specific behavioral repertoires, leading to his discovery that food odors differentially regulate mating behaviors across species.
Brain Algorithms and Circuits
Gregor Schuhknecht will start the Brain Algorithms and Circuits Group in December 2025. His lab investigates how the synaptic circuitry of the vertebrate brain gives rise to the computational algorithms that animals use to solve real-world problems. Working with larval zebrafish, the group integrates behavioral experiments with functional imaging, electrophysiology, and connectomics to link neural circuits to flexible behavior.
“We want to understand how brains compute - how neural networks give rise to the algorithms that guide perception, decision-making, and action,” explains Schuhknecht. “The zebrafish offers a unique window into this, because it has a vertebrate brain that offers exceptional experimental accessibility.”
Gregor Schuhknecht studied Biosciences and Neuroscience in Heidelberg and Zurich, and obtained his PhD from ETH Zurich. At the Institute of Neuroinformatics, he studied the relationship of synapse anatomy and function, which resulted in a highly cited landmark paper. Schuknecht was then a Postdoctoral Fellow with Florian Engert at Harvard University, where he related structure and function of neuronal circuits in the zebrafish brain - before being recruited to our institute.
Dr. Philipp Brand
Research Group Leader
philipp.brand@brain.mpg.de
Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt am Main
Dr. Gregor Schuhknecht
Research Group Leader
gregor.schuhknecht@brain.mpg.de
Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt am Main
https://brain.mpg.de/670708/two-new-research-groups-join-the-max-planck-institut...
https://brain.mpg.de/brand/de
https://brain.mpg.de/schuhknecht
Gregor Schuhknecht (left) and Philipp Brand (right), new Research Group Leaders at the MPI for Brain ...
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Gregor Schuhknecht (left) and Philipp Brand (right), new Research Group Leaders at the MPI for Brain ...
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