Research Areas

The major goals of the CIN are to contribute to a better understanding of how the brain generates function and how brain diseases impair function. The work necessary to attain this goal will be organised in 5 research areas A to C, N plus T. These areas represent distinct clusters in a 2-dimensional coordinate system with the two axes representing the significance of basic versus applied research and the importance of low-level versus high-level approaches respectively. We use the term ‘low-level approaches’ for questions related to the biological implementation of information processing, whereas the term ‘high-level approaches’ is meant to address implementation-independent aspects of information processing. Each area will involve a number of established groups as well as novel groups, to be funded by the proposed cluster. The research areas will serve as platforms for common projects. Although hands-on cooperation will primarily occur within research areas, we will encourage interdisciplinary work amongst groups from different areas