Consistent with its goal of understanding the structure and function of the brain (and disorders thereof) through an intimate connection between theory and experiment, The Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences is comprised of three sets of major Research Laboratories: The Human Brain and Behavior Laboratories, The Basic Neurosciences Laboratories, and The Laboratory for Theoretical Neurosciences. Each of these Laboratories possesses state of the art equipment and computational capabilities. A hallmark of the Center's Research and Training environment is the degree of interaction and collaboration among the faculty most of whom come from different disciplinary backgrounds, e.g., experimental psychology, theoretical physics, neurophysiology, molecular biology, applied mathematics and so forth. The result is an unusual integration of ideas and methods from different disciplines adapted to understanding the brain~behavior relation.

The Human Brain and Behavior Laboratories contain four independent research labs devoted to uncovering the principles and mechanisms underlying sensorimotor coordination, learning and memory (Laboratory for Coordination Dynamics), speech and language (Laboratory for Speech Production and Perception) and music (DARMA). There is also a vision research lab in which high resolution eye-movement monitoring is used to study how humans process complex, time-varying visual scenes. The latest neuroimaging techniques, including high density EEG recording and real-time functional MRI, are available for all investigations of human behavior and cognition. MEG is available through longstanding off-site collaborations in Vancouver, Canada and Vienna, Austria.

The Basic Neurosciences Laboratories currently contain three independent research labs: one to study molecular and cellular mechanisms of neural damage, growth and regeneration; one for cellular neuroanatomy and neurophysiology where the focus is on the neural structures and mechanisms underlying sleep and memory, particularly the hippocampal rhythm; and one to investigate the basic biophysics of ion channels which underlie cellular communication using patch clamp techniques.

A unique feature of the Center's approach is that theory and experiment do not proceed independently. Rather, they complement each other. The Laboratory for Theoretical Neurosciences provides an environment for theory development, the creation of new tools and advanced signal processing methods for analyzing very large datasets (on the order of 10 Gb), modeling and simulation, and scientific visualization. Two separate research and training facilities are available to support these activities. Among the major research efforts underway are: the modeling of single neurons and large scale neural networks involved in cognition and behavior; the combining of different imaging modalities, EEG, MEG, MRI and functional MRI, to overcome inherent spatial and temporal limitations of each; the mathematical analysis of oscillatory neural networks; and new processing methods to analyze nonstationary, multivariate neural recordings.