About the Center for Mind and Brain
The Center for Mind and Brain is a UC Davis research initiative bringing together world-class scientists with the latest technology to learn how the human mind works and to teach the techniques and tools to the next generation of researchers.
The Center for Mind and Brain (CMB) is devoted to supporting the collaborative work of world-class scientists from a broad spectrum of disciplines encompassing divergent social, biological, computational and medical perspectives.
Understanding the mind is arguably the single greatest challenge in science, because that quest requires the human mind to understand itself. Scientists at the Center for Mind and Brain (CMB) are pursuing the most fundamental questions about how the human mind perceives, thinks, feels and acts. The fundamental question we seek to answer is: How does the mind arise from the biology of the brain? By solving these mysteries and answering these questions, we can develop new treatments for psychiatric and neurological disorders and help people from all walks of live throughout the world achieve the enormous potential of the human mind.
Scientists in the CMB study language, memory, attention, cognitive control, emotion, multisensory integration, music cognition, social cognition and visual cognition from cognitive neuroscience and developmental perspectives in healthy infants, children and adults, and in special patient populations. We also are leaders in the emerging field of translational cognitive neuroscience, which endeavors to translate basic science findings about the operation of healthy minds and brains into clinical research on mind-brain disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder and Alzheimer's disease.
Facilities and Researchers
Our 19 core faculty members come from a range of departments, including Psychology, Neurology, Linguistics, Human Ecology and Neurobiology. In addition, more than 20 postdoctoral research fellows, more than 50 graduate students, and 165 undergraduate research interns are involved with the CMB.
Our facilities include a dedicated building and a suite of rooms in an adjacent building, for a total of 39,000 square feet of laboratories, offices, and meeting spaces. The CMB has nine EEG recording systems with more than 800 channels, and we have easy access state-of-the-art MRI systems at the Center for Neuroscience and Imaging Research Center.
Video Overview
Director Ron Mangun and Associate Director Amanda Guyer Welcome you to the Center for Mind and Brain with a video introduction.
Projects
The Center for Mind and Brain hosts several ongoing large-scale multi-lab projects, including an Adolescent Studies Project, a Cochlear Implants Project and the Shamatha Project, the most comprehensive study of meditation ever conducted.
Events and Outreach
The CMB engages scientists and the general public in a variety of events and outreach activities. We provide presentations by top researchers in our Exploring the Mind lecture series, and we host CMB Summits, yearly workshops on emerging topics and developments related to the human mind and brain. We also provide research internships for graduate students, undergraduate students, and high school students.