The Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute (MBI) is a free standing institute at Johns Hopkins University with strong connections to the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Medicine. It was created in 1994 with a generous gift from Zanvyl Krieger to address the great scientific question of the 21st century: How does neural activity in the brain give rise to mental phenomena?
The MBI is dedicated to the study of the neural mechanisms of higher brain functions using modern neurophysiological, anatomical, and computational techniques. We combine state-of-the-art experimental techniques for measuring neural activity with linear/nonlinear mathematical modeling on large computer clusters. Our goal is to understand, at the most fundamental, algorithmic level, how the brain processes information about the world to generate perception, knowledge, memory, decision, and action.
The Mind/Brain Institute helped establish the undergraduate neuroscience major, which now has the third largest enrollment in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, and it is currently working to help establish a university-wide graduate program in neuroscience and cognition.