Welcome to the
Institute for Interdisciplinary Brain
and Behavioral Sciences

The Institute for Interdisciplinary Brain and Behavioral Sciences (The Brain Institute) comprises a network of interdisciplinary researchers and specialists spanning the fields of psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, neurology, anesthesiology, neurobiology, behavioral economics, computation and information processing in the brain, engineering, physics, anthropology, and cognitive science. We thrive on communication, criticism, and stimulation, focused on the unification of research in the behavioral and brain sciences at the systems level, with an eye to clinical and useful applications, innovations with artificial intelligence, insights from neuropsychology, and philosophy of mind.

Research questions we address include topics such as attention, consciousness, hypnosis, meditation, placebos, cognitive control, free will, sense of self, agency and authorship, self-regulation, neurofeedback, deception, perception and psychophysics, machine and deep learning, computational models of higher brain functions, mental health, and psychopathology.

Hosted at the Rinker Health Science Campus at Chapman University, the Brain Institute fosters interactions with academic scholars, experts, practitioners, and institutes: locally (e.g., UC Irvine, Disneyland, and Hoag Neurosciences Institute); within Southern California (e.g., UCLA, Cedars Sinai, Caltech, USC, UCSD); across California (e.g., Stanford, Cal, UC Santa Barbara, UCSF); nationally (e.g., University of Oregon, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Harvard, Yale); and internationally (e.g., McGill University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, University of Oxford, University of New South Wales, Fudan University).

As part of our academic mission, we take pride in providing relevant research opportunities and mentorship for interested and qualified students, faculty, and industry leaders. We promote and actively participate in community outreach and industry partnerships in line with our strategic mission.