Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity

At the Oxford Centre for Human Brain Activity we use the latest neuroimaging technologies to research how the functioning human brain works. We’re proud of our friendly research community and the synergistic collaborations of medical clinicians, psychologists and engineers.

We aim to improve understanding of how the brain works, both in health and disease. We want our research to advance healthcare by identifying target neural mechanisms for treatment or by detecting people at risk of developing disease.

We use magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the activity of populations of neurons in the brain. Both techniques measure painlessly from the surface of the head and allow us to track activity at the millisecond time scale.

We also use Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to stimulate brain function in specific regions. This allows us to test the importance of a brain area for a behaviour, and may briefly simulate what might happen if that brain area were damaged by stroke.

Our Analysis Group develop methods for analysing data and for combining results across different imaging methods. They have published several findings that have significantly advanced our ability to understand brain function.