Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Institute (BCNI)

Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia
What the facility does

Multidisciplinary hub for brain imaging to better understand and treat the human brain in health and disease.

Areas of expertise

The Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Institute (BCNI) fosters interdisciplinary and collaborative engagement across disciplines and institutions concerning the relationship between mind and brain. Building on the strengths of world-renowned researchers who investigate a variety of behavioural, sensory-motor, cognitive and neurophysiological phenomena, the BCNI focuses on a broad range of topics related to the neurobiological mechanisms underlying attention, perception, sensory-motor integration, language, memory and action in health and disease. The major emphasis is on using structural and functional brain imaging and behavioural/clinical assessments to better understand the biology and neurophysiology of the underlying brain-network connectivity and communication dynamics relating to cognitive human brain functions, cognitive disabilities and neurological and psychiatric symptoms, including traumatic brain injuries. The goal is to further integrate functional connectivity dynamics (or brain-network oscillation dynamics) among local and large-scale networks in health and disease and to develop/improve objective neurophysiological markers, translating into better pedagogical applications and individual cognitive, pharmacological or surgical interventional therapies. Overall, the BCNI provides a matrix of expert scientists, clinicians, centres and institutes working synergistically toward these and related goals across disciplines and institutions.

Research services
  • Multi-modal brain-imaging infrastructure (across disciplines and institutions)
  • Behavioural research infrastructure (behavioural and clinical assessments)
  • Technology development (centralized-user-friendly data analysis tools and strategies)
  • Applied and translational research (basic and clinical research)
  • Training platform in brain imaging and data signal processing (scientists/post-docs/students/ staff)
  • Knowledge development and translation (human brain: education/health and disease)
  • Development: neurodiagnostic markers (cognitive disabilities/neurology/psychiatry)
  • Interventional strategies (cognitive, pharmacological/neurosurgical)
  • Monitoring strategies (behaviour/brain imaging: pre- and post-interventional therapies)
  • Industrial commercialization (hardware-software technologies/neuromarkers/intervention/etc.)
Sectors of application
  • Education
  • Life sciences, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment

Specialized lab

Equipment

Function

Conference/networking area 

Conference/networking area 

Collaborative networking capabilities, including Wi-Fi, Smart Board, projectors and white boards. This area is made available to the research community at large across disciplines and institutions to allow further collaborative discussions on imaging technology, data analysis strategies and applied/translational research, knowledge translation and intervention.

 

High-performance computing equipment

High-performance computing (HPC).

 

Centralized software to boost data analysis and visualization

User-friendly and semi-automatic online pipelines, including centralized commercial data analysis and visualization packages. The BCNI further facilitates the harbouring and expansion of centralized brain-imaging expertise and analysis software development.

 

Portable EEG scanner

Allows further complementary dynamic brain-imaging capabilities directly into the multidisciplinary research and public community.

Behavioural/clinical assessment area

Portable eye-tracker and portable EEG recordings

Available to the brain-imaging community at large, especially across SFU’s related disciplines.

Imaging data analysis area

Workstations with direct access to centralized platforms, software analysis and visualization

User-friendly and semi-automatic software analysis and visualization. The BCNI’s available area for multi-modal imaging data analysis.

  • Child and Family Research Institute at BC Children’s Hospital
  • The University of British Columbia
  • NeuroDevNet (Networks of Centres of Excellence)
  • BC Fast ForWord Consortium