On the Brain

The University of Nebraska Board of Regents last week approved funding to outfit a new lab that’s included in the East Stadium expansion project. It’s part of a unique partnership with athletics that is expected to produce new findings on brain injuries. This lab is a critical piece of our new Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior — known as CB³ — which is headed up by psychologist and brain imaging expert Dennis Molfese.  In addition to studying brain injuries, the researchers affiliated with CB³ study many aspects of systems biology and social behavior, (SB)² , another strong area of research on campus.

We couldn’t be happier with the Board of Regents news. Rarely do you see academics and athletics collaborating in such a close way. Nebraska Athletics is among very few big-time college athletic programs are self-supporting. Often times, the university has to subsidize athletics with state dollars. Here we don’t have to do that. In our case, athletics is actually helping us and it’s a symbiotic relationship. I’ve very excited about this.

Prof. Molfese joined our faculty in 2010 to add imaging expertise to our efforts. He established a brain-imaging lab in Nebraska Hall and has introduced hundreds of researchers across campus to this line of work. In addition, he has taken on a leadership role within the Committee on Institutional Cooperation’s traumatic brain injury research group, which is working to better understand the causes and effects of sports-related concussion and head injuries.

Interest in this research extends beyond the Big Ten as well. We’re seeing interest from around the country because brain injury research and concussion research within athletics is a very important area. We’re proud to take the lead in this area and are eager to see where this road leads us.