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A New Approach
Complex challenges demand a collaborative approach, a willingness to break boundaries, and an openness to new ideas. That is why MindCORE— the Mind Center for Outreach, Research, and Education—exists, to bring together faculty, fellows, and students from across Penn to explore the science of the human mind. United by their interest in human brains, behavior, and the cognitive sciences, MindCORE-affiliated researchers and students come from disciplines including psychology, linguistics, biology, neuroscience, and others.
Under the direction of Joe Kable, Jean-Marie Kneeley President’s Distinguished Professor of Psychology, everything that MindCORE does, from providing seed funding to researchers to hosting postdoctoral fellows and training students is guided by the belief that understanding human behavior can make the world a better place, and that collaborative, cross-disciplinary research is key to making progress.
Pieces of the Puzzle
MindCORE researchers pursue insights into phenomena ranging from brain abnormalities, decision-making, and risk tolerance to linguistic acquisition and the fundamental nature of human intelligence and creativity. In order to cultivate scientifically rigorous, nuanced understandings of the mind’s inner workings, scientists must work together and recognize that different disciplines can hold different pieces of the puzzle.
MindCORE research emphasizes collaboration, providing labs with shared instrumentation and laboratory facilities, awarding seed funding, hosting postdoctoral fellows, and helping recruit faculty who foster meaningful connections between departments and programs. The collaborative, cross-lab approach enables the use of technology and methodology that no single lab could support on its own.
Joe Kable, Jean-Marie Kneeley President’s Distinguished Professor of Psychology, is the director of MindCORE. He studies the cognitive and neurophysiological mechanisms of human decision making, using an integrated empirical approach that borrows from economics, the psychology of judgment and decision making, and social and cognitive neuroscience.
MRI Research
One of the most exciting, unique aspects of MindCORE’s research initiative is the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). MRI allows researchers to see brain activity in action, as people make decisions, solve problems, or even read poetry or create music, allowing greater insight into the complexity at work in the human brain.
With MRI, MindCORE scientists have studied the development of spatial recognition over time, discovering the part of the brain that acts as an internal GPS and allows us to successfully navigate our environment. MRI is also used to study brain responses in different scenarios: can a brain response predict how information will be shared, if a decision will be altruistic, if a child has the potential to excel at math?
A Network of Scientists
Postdoctoral fellows are key to MindCORE’s approach. As early career scientists with a track record of cross-disciplinary thinking, they ask innovative questions. By pairing fellows with faculty members from different departments and providing research funding, MindCORE empowers them to answer those new questions and propel the field forward. Because they work across labs, fellows reinforce MindCORE’s collaborative structure. Though the fellowship program is relatively new, its alums have already gone on to prestigious positions at other institutions, bringing the MindCORE ethos with them and creating stronger networks within the Penn community and across the scientific community more broadly.
Education and Outreach
MindCORE supports students interested in studying human brains and behavior, instilling the importance of cross-disciplinary approaches from the start. At the undergraduate level, MindCORE facilitates interaction between College majors related to the study of the mind and sponsors research opportunities for undergraduate students, including summer research fellowships for Penn and non-Penn students. Both allow students to work closely with faculty, as well as share processes and findings with their fellow students.
The Center supports and participates in a variety of public programs on- and off-campus to share neuroscience knowledge and demonstrate real-world implications. This programing, including seminar series, public lectures, and other events such as demonstrations at the Academy of Natural Science, aims to broaden participation of young scientists from groups typically underrepresented in cognitive and brain science.
