Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics

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Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics

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The Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics is to understand information processing in the brain.

29/10/2026

🎉 Welcome to the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Marcel Binz!

Since October, Marcel has been building the new “Core Cognition” research group here in Tübingen. His goal is a unified theory of human thinking, and his tool is AI. Language models serve as a testbed for theories of how people think and learn.

Mathematics, cognitive science, machine learning, psychology: his path has covered a lot of ground. “However different my stations look on paper, my goal has remained constant,” he says. “I’ve always developed models meant to capture human behavior and, above all, human learning.”

His team is international and interdisciplinary. As Marcel puts it: “Science is a team sport.”

Read the full portrait: https://www.kyb.tuebingen.mpg.de/portrait-binz

📷Jan Roeder / Helmholtz Munich

27/10/2026

Congratulations to Vikash Choudhary from our Systems Neuroscience and Neuroengineering group, winner of the 2026 Attempto Prize of the University of Tübingen! 🏆

Fish sleep was long thought to be simple rest. Vikash and colleagues tracked zebrafish larvae over several days and found that their sleep splits into four distinct substages, much like in mammals and humans. The pattern holds across zebrafish strains and a related species, so sleep in lower vertebrates is more complex than assumed.

Congratulations also to Dr. Lisa Haxel, who shares the award for her work on personalized transcranial magnetic stimulation.

https://uni-tuebingen.de/en/university/news-and-publications/newsdetail/?tx_news_pi1%5Baction%5D=detail&tx_news_pi1%5Bcontroller%5D=News&tx_news_pi1%5Bnews%5D=137835&cHash=0288d70117635999c9e2ef0432185a07

📷 Alexander Ries/University of Tübingen

University of Tübingen Vikash Choudhary Jennifer Li

07/10/2026

Longer answers, more flattery, more bullet points: what we like in an AI response shapes how the next model answers.

Tom Sühr of the MPI for Intelligent Systems researches the interaction between humans and AI. In our interview, he explains how our everyday choices between two answers feed into training, why longer, more polished responses tend to win, and why that doesn't always make the answers better.

His take: the biggest, most impressive mushroom isn't always the tastiest.

🔗 Read the interview: https://www.kyb.tuebingen.mpg.de/suehr

🎤 Want to hear more? Come to Tom Sühr’s public talk (in German) on October 21, 6 PM, at the Max Planck Houst in Tübingen.

🚨 Registration: https://www.kyb.tuebingen.mpg.de/einblick

09/09/2026

🏆 Congratulations to Manuel Spitschan and Marie Luise Schreiter, who have received the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie - DGPs Communication Award for their project "Night Owl or Early Bird? — A Science Roadshow on the Body's Internal Clock."

Their mobile research lab brings cutting-edge science on light and our circadian rhythm directly to the public, letting visitors take part in studies and get personal feedback on their own data. It's a powerful example of participatory science communication that reaches audiences often underrepresented in psychological research.

DGPs President Eva-Lotta Brakemeier praised the project for combining "scientific information, dialogue, and hands-on participation in a compelling way, making psychological research something people can experience directly."
👏 Huge congratulations to both!

Photo: Manuel Spitschan and Marie-Luise Schreiter (center) together with DGPs President Eva-Lotta Brakemeier (left) and laudator Friederike Hendriks (right).
Eric Devillet/DGPs

03/09/2026

🧠✨ Meet FRUITION, a new 5-year project mapping how your brain plans ahead, solves problems, and adapts to a changing world.

Romy Lorenz has just won an European Research Council Starting Grant to study the frontoparietal network, the backbone of our cognitive skills.

Using ultra-high field fMRI, her team can image the brain's cortical layers in fine detail revealing which direction information is flowing. Instead of scanning many people once, they'll study a small group of volunteers again and again, with different methods, building a uniquely detailed picture of how this network really works.

Why it matters: this network is often disrupted in conditions like OCD, ADHD, and schizophrenia. Understanding it better could shape more precise treatments down the line.

Huge congrats to Romy!👏

🔗 https://www.kyb.tuebingen.mpg.de/erc-lorenz

24/08/2026

In the late 1950s, two young researchers threaded an electrode into a cat's brain and found something unexpected: a neuron that fired only for one edge of light at one angle.

The theory of vision they built over the years, starting from this serendipitous discovery, won David Hubel and Thorsten Wiesel the Nobel Prize. And it became a blueprint for modern computer vision.

New episode of Code of the Mind: how the brain decodes vision.
🎧 Listen now: https://www.tuebingen.mpg.de/292778/Wiesel-and-Hubel.mp3

… or on your favorite podcast platform!

23/07/2026

📺 Ein besonderer Tag am Institut: Checker Tobi war da!

(ENGLISH BELOW)

Gestern hat das Team von Checker Tobi (KiKA) bei uns gedreht – für ein großes Checker-Extra zum Thema KI. 🤖🧠
Am MPI wollte Tobi wissen: Mach KI uns dumm?
Unsere Forschungsgruppenleiterin Romy Lorenz hat ihn dafür in den MRT-Scanner gelegt, um live zu checken, was in seinem Gehirn passiert. Es hat großen Spaß gemacht, unsere Forschung einmal so zu zeigen, dass auch die kleinsten Zuschauer:innen sie verstehen! ✨
Hier ein paar Fotos vom Dreh hinter den Kulissen. Wir sind gespannt auf die Folge! Erstmals zu sehen am 15.09.2026 um 20 Uhr im KiKA.

***

📺 Special guest at the institute: Checker Tobi was here!
Yesterday the Checker Tobi (KiKA) team filmed at our institute for a big special episode about AI. 🤖🧠
At the MPI, he wanted to know: Does AI make us dumb?
Our research group leader Romy Lorenz put Tobi in the MRI scanner to check, live, what was happening in his brain. It was great fun showing our research in a way even the youngest viewers can understand! ✨
Here are a few behind-the-scenes photos. Be among the first to watch on Sept 15, 2026, at 8pm on KiKA.

20/07/2026

Meet Jose Javier Vázquez Rodríguez, the newest EMBO Fellow to join our Neuroscience & Neuroengineering lab (Jennifer Li & Drew Robson).
Jose builds genetic "light switches" — using genetic code expansion to engineer proteins that turn a gene on only when triggered by light. During his PhD he did this in roundworms; now he's adapting the approach for zebrafish, aiming for single-neuron precision: switching a specific gene on in exactly the neuron you want, at exactly the moment you want.
Paired with the lab's imaging tools, this could let researchers pinpoint what individual neurons actually do — for example, testing what happens to an animal's internal "map" of space when a single place cell is switched off.
Read Jose's full story — from an unplanned path into genetics to a roach colony at home — here: https://www.kyb.tuebingen.mpg.de/jose-vazquez-rodriguez

15/07/2026

🚴‍♀️🏹 Health Day at the Max Planck Campus!
Today our campus swapped keyboards for bows and pipettes for smoothie straws! 🥤
Our annual Health Day brought colleagues together for a full day of movement and wellbeing:

⚽ A campus challenge featuring soccer dart and other fun games
🏹 Archery for a steady aim and calm nerves
🚲 Free bike fittings to keep cycling safe and comfortable
🧘 Gymnastics breaks to stretch out the workday
🥤 A smoothie bike — pedal power blending up delicious, healthy treats
✨ and much more!

Beyond the fun, days like this are a reminder that supporting everyone’s physical and mental wellbeing is just as important as the science we produce. A healthy campus is a productive, creative, and resilient one.
Huge thanks to everyone who organized and joined in — see you at the next one! 💪

14/07/2026

Last week's CaCTüS Meet the Campus Get-Together was a wonderful occasion, filled with warm introductions from our 12 interns and plenty of great conversations! We would like to thank the Hanrieder Foundation for Excellence for making the supporting program of CaCTüS possible through the Hanrieder Impact Fund.

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Tübingen
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Website

https://www.kyb.tuebingen.mpg.de/2549/en

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