Our research

Research at CUBIC spans across four interrelated themes, each of which capture our existing strengths and reflect our ambitions to tackle global scientific challenges in cognitive, clinical, and computational neuroscience. 

These themes are:

1. The ecological brain
2. Decision making and learning
3. Mental health
4. Neural changes over the lifespan

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The ecological brain

One of the fundamental aims of human cognitive neuroscience is to understand and explain how the brain functions within an ecological context. At CUBIC, we combine MRI techniques with more naturalistic approaches (e.g., virtual reality, eye tracking, geo-tracking, spoken narratives) to understand how the brain supports perception, action, language, and memory within the real world.

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Decision making and learning

Humans exist within highly complex, dynamic environments and thus require well-tuned neural and cognitive machinery to process, select and act upon different courses of action. CUBIC scientists are at the forefront of work examining this machinery, through combining behavioural methods, computational modelling, and neuroimaging. 

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Mental health

Mental illnesses affect millions of people globally a year, causing significant disruption to everyday life and placing considerable burden on healthcare systems. CUBIC scientists use MRI alongside other approaches to better understand the neurobiological and cognitive mechanisms associated with the onset and maintenance of mental health disorders. 

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Neural changes across the lifespan

The human brain changes considerably over the first 20 years of life, and continues to change across adulthood, with significant structural, functional, and metabolic changes seen in later life. CUBIC scientists use cutting edge neuroscience approaches and genetic methods to better understand brain changes in early development, as well as brain alteration in those at risk of poor later life cognitive health.