Approach

The institute is distinguished by world-class talent and leading-edge technologies, all highly concentrated and closely connected.

Scientists and physicians affiliated with the Norman Prince Neurosciences Institute have made major contributions to the fields of neurology, neurosurgery and psychiatry, including implanting the first multi-electrode array in a human brain as well as conducting pioneering trials for deep brain stimulation and Alzheimer’s disease vaccines. The more than 100 scientists in the Brown Institute for Brain Science have shed important light on the brain and nervous system, including discovering a new type of light-detecting cell in the eye, inventing and refining the first human brain-machine interface, and explaining basic mechanisms of learning and memory, decision-making and image and language processing.

Researchers have access to cutting-edge equipment, including an IBM supercomputer, core facilities for genomics and proteomics, a 3,500-sample brain bank, a medical simulation center, two 3T magnetic resonance imaging facilities and a portable, multi-slice CT scanner. Clinicians affiliated with the institute not only have longstanding collaborations with Brown neuroscientists and cognitive researchers, but also with Brown researchers in applied mathematics, biostatistics, public health, molecular biology, electrical engineering, computer science and computational biology. 

These resources, and this talent, come together through the Norman Prince Neurosciences Institute in a spirit of close-knit collaboration – a hallmark of the best science and medical care. At 1,045 square miles, Rhode Island is the smallest state in the nation and can be traversed in about an hour. The population of just over 1 million is economically and ethnically diverse and is the most geographically stable in the nation. The state has only one department of health, one children’s hospital, one medical school, and one pharmacy school.

These qualities make it easy to:

• Share a wealth of cutting-edge equipment and expertise

• Enroll representative samples of patients with brain diseases in clinical trials quickly, and study them over time

• Test and rapidly implement new ways to improve clinical care, including new drugs, new devices, new processes and new policies

• Access state leaders in government and business to develop large-scale research strategies and health care policies