The Brain & Cognition Laboratory is a cognitive neuroscience research group headed by Professor Anna Christina Nobre, at the Department of Experimental Psychology in the University of Oxford.

What we investigate

At the most general level, the aim of our research is to reveal the organizational principles of the neural systems that support cognitive functions in the human brain. The threshold between the physical world and our private mental world has baffled thinkers for millennia. We chisel away at this problem – how matter becomes thought – patiently and tenaciously, day in and day out, never tiring of the mystery. 

At a more detailed level, we are interested in understanding how the brain dynamically transduces and transforms stimulus energy out there into the few items that come to occupy our mind. Contemporary research is full of nasty examples of how we are actually oblivious to most things that happen around us. Instead of that immediate and undeniable rich and complete picture of perception we sense, the canvas of perception contains less than a handful of objects at any given time, plus some broad background strokes. What determines which objects come to occupy our consciousness or guide our actions? This question frames the functions collectively known as “selective attention”. Attention amplifies or filters the neural signals carrying information about the features and locations of items out in the world, according to our changing motivations, goals or whims. By now, it is firmly established that even the earliest stages of our perception are highly manufactured and in continual flux.

Methodological approach　

Most of the time, we investigate behaviour and brain activity in normal and healthy adults.  In collaboration with other groups, we also investigate behaviour and brain activity in children, and in individuals with neurological or psychiatric conditions.

State-of-the-art methodology for cognitive-neuroscience experimentation is available in the Brain & Cognition Lab and in the brain-imaging centres and laboratories with which we collaborate closely (OHBA and FMRIB). In order to investigate dynamic fluctuations in brain activity during cognition, we collect behavioural responses during psychological and psychophysical tasks in combination with a variety of non-invasive techniques to observe the human brain at work. The Brain & Cognition Lab is unusual in its mastery of multiple brain-imaging and related methods, including magnetoencephalography (MEG), electroencephaography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERPs),functional magnetic-resonance imaging (fMRI), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and eye-tracking. The laboratory is also a pioneer in combining and integrating methods, such as simultaneous EEG/TMS and EEG/fMRI. Each method has its strengths and weakness. The convergence and complementarity across the multiple methods are therefore essential in leading to balanced and comprehensive understanding of the experimental problems.

 Funding

Funding for the research in the Brain & Cognition Laboratory has come primarily from the Wellcome Trust,  Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), and James S. McDonnell Foundation (JSMF). 

Contact us 

If you would like more information about the Brain & Cognition Lab, or about joining the lab, please email braincoglab@googlemail.com.

Brain & Cognition Lab
Department of Experimental Psychology
South Parks Road
Oxford OX1 3UD, UK