Systems Neuroscience

This area comprises a broad range of neuroscientists interested in the brain areas and circuits that regulate behavior, how it is learned, and how it can go awry. Studies in primates or rodents use various functional brain imaging and physiology techniques as well as targeted causal manipulations to study how the cortex, basal ganglia and spinal cord control muscles, how sensory systems function and are integrated with movements, how autonomic functions are centrally regulated, and how neurological disorders arise.

Numerous neuroscientists are also interested in the biological processes associated with cognition. Research in this area includes understanding hominid brain evolution associated with human social cognition, the emergent field of neuroeconomics (the neurobiological basis for individual preferences and constraints on decision making), brain-region interactions in memories, and alterations in cognitive function with aging.