MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit
Welcome to the virtual MRC CBU science night event, as part of the Cambridge Festival (31 March – 10 April 2022)
The MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit is one of the world’s leading centres of research looking at the brain’s extraordinary capacities in language, memory, perception, reasoning and creativity. We hope you have fun learning about the wide range of research carried out at the Unit.
On these pages you will find pre-recorded talks from some of the Unit’s Scientists, information about the facilities used at the Unit, online demonstrations/games and downloadable activities, suitable to all ages.
Your feedback is extremely valuable and helps us to ensure we are providing you with exciting and informative content. Once you have enjoyed viewing the content, please take a few moments to complete the short feedback form in the feedback section or click the button below to take you there. Thank you!
On these pages you will find pre-recorded talks from four of the Unit’s Scientists, meet the team interviews, online demonstration/games and downloadable activities, suitable to all ages.
In this section you will find a range of online demonstrations and activities relating to the brain, which have been designed by our Scientists. Some of these experiments are used during research studies with help from our volunteers. There is also some downloadable content for you to print and enjoy at home.
Below you can see videos and information about some of the facilities that are currently in use at the Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit to conduct our research studies. You can take part in these research studies yourself by signing up to volunteer. More information can be found about this in the next section (volunteer).
The CBU fMRI Facility began operations in December 2005 and is already providing high-field (3T) parallel imaging facilities and support to the cognitive neuroscience community, Cambridge-wide, via the first Siemens 3T Tim Trio in the UK, which is located on site. With its high speed data network and over 100 terabytes of data storage space to support functional neuroimaging, the MRC CBU now has one of the most advanced systems for the acquisition and analysis of functional neuroimaging data sets in the world.
The Unit’s research is very dependent on keen volunteers who contribute to our studies by completing computerised experiments and taking part in various types of brain scanning studies in our Unit, and online tasks that you can complete at home. More information about participating, and how you can sign up can be found by clicking on the button below. There are some examples of what you might be doing in the images below or in the facilities section.
Thank you for visiting the MRC CBU science night virtual event. We would be grateful if you could let us know your thoughts about your experience of our virtual science night by completing this short form below. Your feedback is important and will help us improve future events. No personal data will be required.
Please refer to the information below to assist you in navigating our Science festival pages. If you require additional help or have noticed something is not right then please get in touch by emailing: communications@mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk
To navigate between the sections you can use the menu at the top of the page or single buttons at the bottom of the page, the up and down keys on your keyboard, or by clicking and dragging the screen with your mouse. This will allow you to jump between sections. On the main page you can also use the image buttons to go to a particular section. There is a full screen button on the top right of each page.
To open any games or demo, click on the image next to the title of each. This will open it up in a new parent window. Once finished you can press the back button to go back to the section. Info about the tasks will be displayed below with a '!' symbol which can be clicked to open a dialog box.
All of the videos are hosted on YouTube but embedded onto our Science Festival page. To open a video just click the image and it will begin to play. If you need need to make the video larger you can use the full screen button in the bottom right hand corner of the video. To exit full screen click the button again. Captions are on by default and can be turned off with the captions button. Please note that these are autogenerated so some words might be wrong.
Most images are static and won't be interactable with. Some when hovered over will show text related to the image. Buttons that can be interacted with will change from the default icon to a pointing finger to indicate it can be pressed. They may also change the style when hovering over them. Some content can be downloaded by clicking on it. These will be highlighted.
Welcome to the virtual MRC CBU science night event, as part of the Cambridge Festival (31 March – 10 April 2022)
The MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit is one of the world’s leading centres of research looking at the brain’s extraordinary capacities in language, memory, perception, reasoning and creativity. We hope you have fun learning about the wide range of research carried out at the Unit.
On these pages you will find pre-recorded talks from some of the Unit’s Scientists, information about the facilities used at the Unit, online demonstrations / games and downloadable activities, suitable to all ages.
Please select from the sections below to start. To navigate between these sections you can swipe left and right or use the menu buttons at the top of the page.
- Rob Mok
- Luisa Fassi
- Saskia Frisby
This page you are seeing is optimized for phones so the interactive games are not visible as they require a tablet or computer to function properly. If you have access to one of these devices then please come back to the page to see all of the content. Apologies for those who don't.
The CBU fMRI Facility began operations in December 2005 and is already providing high-field (3T) parallel imaging facilities and support to the cognitive neuroscience community, Cambridge-wide, via the first Siemens 3T Tim Trio in the UK, which is located on site. With its high speed data network and over 100 terabytes of data storage space to support functional neuroimaging, the MRC CBU now has one of the most advanced systems for the acquisition and analysis of functional neuroimaging data sets in the world.
Cross section image from an MRI scanner
3D MRI from our scanner. You can have yours too
Participant in the CBU's MRI scanner
The Unit’s research is very dependent on keen volunteers who contribute to our studies by completing computerised experiments and taking part in various types of brain scanning studies in our Unit, and online tasks that you can complete at home. More information about participating, and how you can sign up can be found on our website: https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/take-part/
