Yingxi Lin.

Yingxi Li

Professor of psychiatry and neuroscience
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Yingxi Li is professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, and chief of the Psychiatry Neuroscience Research Division at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Her research focuses on uncovering molecular and circuit mechanisms in neurodevelopment, memory formation and neuropsychiatric conditions. Employing a broad array of multidisciplinary experimental techniques, work in her lab spans analyses from the genomic and molecular level to synapse, circuit and whole-animal behavioral levels.

Originally from China, Lin studied engineering physics at Tsinghua University and received her Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University. She conducted her postdoctoral research under Michael Greenberg at Harvard Medical School. She was assistant professor from 2009 to 2015 and associate professor from 2015 to 2018 at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to her current role, she was full professor and director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program at SUNY Upstate Medical University.

Explore more from The Transmitter

Research image of a fiber optic implant in a mouse brain.

Bespoke photometry system captures variety of dopamine signals in mice

The tool tracks the excitation of an engineered protein that senses dopamine’s absolute levels, including fast and slow fluctuations in real time, and offers new insights into how the signals change across the brain.

By Sydney Wyatt
21 March 2025 | 5 min read
Cognitive neuroscientist Nick Turk-Browne helps an infant into an fMRI machine.

What infant fMRI is revealing about the developing mind

Cognitive neuroscientists have finally clocked how to perform task-based functional MRI experiments in awake babies—long known for their inability to lie still or take direction. Next, they aim to watch cognition take shape and settle a debate about our earliest memories—with one group publishing a big clue today.

By Calli McMurray
20 March 2025 | 12 min read
A mouse sits on a gloved hand.

Molecular changes after MECP2 loss may drive Rett syndrome traits

Knocking out the gene in adult mice triggered up- and down-regulated expression of myriad genes weeks before there were changes in neuronal function.

By Chloe Williams
20 March 2025 | 5 min read