SISSA - Area Neuroscienze

A variety of research groups are active in Neuroscience, spanning Cognitive Neuroscience, aimed at understanding how the brain produces behavior, and Neurobiology, investigating the molecular, cellular and integrative mechanisms at work in the nervous system.

Cognitive neuroscientists focus on functions expressed by an entire system, where the system may be a baby learning to speak or a population of neurons storing a new memory. The observation of brain-lesioned patients, the recording of neuronal activity, whether at the level of neurons or by imaging the whole brain, and the analysis of mathematical models all contribute to the same goal.

Neurobiologists seek to explain the underlying processes that ultimately account for behavior and for its dysfunction at the level of molecules, cells, networks and integrated systems. To carry out such complex studies, a variety of experimental approaches and scientific disciplines are required, ranging from mathematics and physics to biology.