Transforming Neuroscience

Discovering how the brain gives rise to behaviour

What are we researching?

How does the brain represent the world?

What are we researching?

How does the brain make decisions?

What are we researching?

How does the brain form memories?

Locomotion triggers changes in brain state and long distance communication

While scientists have spent years mapping anatomical projections and monitoring activity from individual neurons, little is known about how signals sent by individual neurons relate to the larger, bidirectional communication that underlies complex behaviour. Neuroscientists at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre report in Nature Neuroscience on a new approach that offers insight into these complex neural conversations.

Calcium activity waves play across dorsal cortex

21 recommended brain hacks from leading neuroscientists

Cartoon of neuroscientists headshots

Diversity of dopamine neurons

Dopamine neurons were traditionally thought to be activated by reward, but recent research has found that some are only activated by non-rewarding stimuli such as punishment or novelty. Professor Naoshige Uchida explains his lab’s research into the diversities of dopamine neurons and how the existence of multiple learning systems could be an adaptive strategy.

How does the brain change during adolescence?

Students at computer illustration

Discovering how the brain gives rise to behaviour

How does the brain allow us to think, feel, see, smell, hear, laugh and love? By bringing together world-leading experimental and computational neuroscientists, the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre's mission is to explain how activity in brain circuits gives rise to thoughts, sensations, memories and actions.

Ground Floor Lecture Theatre

SWC Seminar: Complex Decisions in Simple Minds: Studying Model-based Cognition in Mice

Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University

Ground Floor Lecture Theatre

Public Event: Dear Neuroscience

Dear Neuroscience

“Touch and Proprioception”

Ground Floor Lecture Theatre

SWC Seminar: Neural Circuits for Odor Coding in Piriform Cortex

Dr Kevin Franks, PhD, P.I.

Duke Neurobiology, Duke University of Medicine