About The Brain and Mind Institute

Mel Goodale and Ravi Menon"Cognitive neuroscience, with its concern about perception, action, memory, language, and selective attention, will increasingly come to represent the central focus of all neurosciences in the 21st century."
- Eric Kandel, M.D., Nobel Laureate

The Brain and Mind Institute provides a focus for research in cognitive neuroscience at Western University.

Cognitive neuroscience seeks an understanding of the neural bases of mental abilities such as perception, memory, reasoning, attention, self-awareness, motor control, language, and consciousness. A variety of disciplines, including psychology, neurophysiology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, computational theory, philosophy, and anthropology, are all brought to bear on common problems of mind and brain in an area of investigation known as cognitive neuroscience. The success of future research in this challenging area will require an integrative approach that bridges these traditional disciplines. The overarching purpose of the Institute is to foster this integrative approach.

The Brain and Mind Institute provides a centralized and visible presence for cognitive neuroscience at Western. Its primary function is the promotion of research, the training of highly qualified personnel, and the fostering of national and international collaborations in cognitive neuroscience.

The research facilities available at the Institute not only offer an unparalleled resource for basic research into the neural bases of cognitive function, they also hold the promise of developing a clearer understanding of cognitive dysfunction in a broad range of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Indeed, as the Canadian population ages, the increased incidence of cognitive deficits has emerged as one of most significant social and economic problems facing the nation in the next century. The Brain and Mind Institute is at the forefront of research aimed at tackling this problem.

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