The neural systems and mechanisms we explore, which control proactive and dynamic anticipation, prioritization, and selection of information to guide adaptive behavior, are central to cognitive health and mental wellbeing. We work collaboratively with clinical colleagues to investigate how these systems contribute to deficits in ageing and in psychiatric and neurological disorders and how, conversely, they can be used to support healthy cognition. In addition, we develop and apply new methods to test for the integrity and dynamics of brain systems implicated in disorders.

Current topics of research include:

• Developing sensitive and selective behavioural tasks to identify early risks for specific psychological and neurological disorders
• Developing sensitive and selective neural markers to identify early risks for specific psychological and neurological disorders
• How memory-based attention and memory-based retrieval change with ageing and become disrupted in different types of neurodegenerative disorders
• How focusing attention in working memory changes over the lifespan and how it is disrupted in different psychological and neurological disorders

Theoretical perspectives:

• Nobre AC (2020) Chapter 17: Cognitive neuroscience: principles and methods. In: J Geddes, N Andreason, G Goodwin, editors. New Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry, 3rd Edition (pp. 154–169). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Key empirical contributions:

• Zokaei N, Gillebert CR, Chauvin JJ, Gresch D, Board AG, Rolinski M, Hu MT, Nobre AC (2021) Temporal orienting in Parkinson’s disease. European Journal of Neuroscience, 53(8):2713-2725.
• Zokaei N, Board AG, Slavkova E, Mackay, CE, Nobre* AC, Husain* M (2021) Superior short-term memory in APOE ε2 carriers across the age range. Behavioural Brain Research, 397:112918.
• Heideman SG, Quinn AJ, Woolrich MW, van Ede F, Nobre AC (2020) Dissecting beta-state changes during timed movement preparation in Parkinson’s disease. Progress in Neurobiology, 184:101731. 
• Salvato G, Patai EZ, McCloud T, Nobre AC (2016) Apolipoprotein ε4 breaks the association between declarative long-term memory and memory-based orienting of spatial attention in middle-aged individuals. Cortex 82:206–16. 
• Mok RM, Myers NE, Wallis G, Nobre AC (2016) Behavioral and neural markers of flexible attention over working memory in aging. Cerebral Cortex 26:1831–42. 
• Cousijn H, Tunbridge EM, Rolinski M, Wallis G, Colclough G, Woolrich MW, Nobre AC, Harrison PJ (2015) Modulation of hippocampal theta and hippocampal-prefrontal cortex function by a schizophrenia risk gene. Human Brain Mapping 36(6):2387–95.