The previously known Center for Cognitive Neuroscience has a new name, new focus and new leadership. Under the direction of cognitive scientist Jeff Krichmar, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and Engineering (CENCE) aims to better understand the relation between cognitive abilities and neural systems through brain imaging and mapping, computational modeling, informatics, and engineering techniques.

“We wanted to add an engineering aspect to make the center more interdisciplinary, and the response across campus has been great,” Krichmar says.
 
Housed in the School of Social Sciences, CENCE includes 25 core faculty from five different schools on campus representing departments of cognitive sciences, computer science, mechanical and aerospace engineering, neurobiology and behavior, neurology, biomedical engineering, and anatomy and neurobiology.

The center’s research focus on cognitive neuroscience and engineering will continue to involve human and animal work as well as new engineering techniques, such as biorobotics, computational neuroscience, neuroinformatics, neuromorphic engineering and neurorobotics.

“With this new direction, we’ll be conducting state of the art engineering analyses that can be applied to brain imaging data, assistive and rehabilitative robotics, and novel computers whose architectures mimic the nervous system,” he says. “The current research and new research nicely puts the center in line with the recently announced BRAIN initiative.”

Learn more about CENCE online at www.cence.ss.uci.edu.