UCD Center for Mind and Brain

One of the greatest challenges for empirical science is to understand the human mind, how it evolved, develops in individuals, and arises from the myriad mental functions that humans possess. The goal of understanding the mind is ageless, but only in recent years have scientists assembled the conceptual and methodological tools necessary to tackle this ambitious, exciting and daunting goal.

In recognition of this challenge, the University of California at Davis, established the Center for Mind and Brain (CMB) as one its is campus initiatives. Founded in 2002, the CMB is a research and training unit dedicated to understanding the nature of the human mind from interdisciplinary perspectives.

Scientists currently in the CMB (19 core members), and those who will be recruited to join it, include those interested in a wide range of fundamental questions about how minds are organized. We address these questions using interdisciplinary approaches from social science (anthropology, economics, linguistics, philosophy and psychology), biological science (behavioral and cognitive neuroscience, physiology), engineering science (biomedical and electrical engineering, computer science), and medical science (neurology, psychiatry and medical imaging).

The research mission of the CMB includes investigation of a variety of fundamental issues aimed at answering the fundamental question: How does the mind arise from the biology of the brain? 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 are also a leader 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.