Our core interest is using advanced brain scanning techniques, principally magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), to map the structure and function of the human brain. We are particularly interested in mapping normal memory and learning, ageing, drug effects on brain function, and neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, autism and depression.

We also have a strong technical focus on graph theory, network analysis and other statistical methods for analysis and visualization of the large and complex datasets involved in brain mapping.

The Brain Mapping Unit is part of the University Department of Psychiatry and was set up in 1999 when Ed Bullmore was appointed to a new Professorship of Psychiatry. Since then the Unit has grown in size and now includes about 40 people. We have lab space in Addenbrooke’s Hospital, close to the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre, and on the Downing Site in the center of Cambridge. From 2003, Ed Bullmore, Paul Fletcher and John Suckling have been co-directors of the Unit.

We have active Cambridge collaborations with the MRC/Wellcome Trust Behavioural & Clinical Neurosciences Institute and the Centre for Speech & Language in the Department of Experimental Psychology; the MRC Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit; and Wolfram Schultz’s group in the Department of Anatomy. We also have several external collaborations involving the Institute of Psychiatry and the Institute of Neurology in London as well as various groups in Europe, the US and Australia.