Brain Research

Strategically housed in Nebraska's iconic Memorial Stadium, the Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior stands as a leading research center committed to making a meaningful impact on human health and society through innovation in neuroscience. A partnership with Nebraska Athletics enables state-of-the-art research in sports medicine and student-athlete health.  At the heart of CB3 lies a cutting-edge brain imaging facility and specialized laboratories that investigate the linkages between the brain and politics, nutrition, concussions, aging and even companion animals. 

The center recently announced a first-of-its-kind study that will explore the possible connections between beef consumption and brain health. With funding from the Nebraska Beef Council, the Texas Beef Council and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the CB3 research team will collaborate with Loeffel Meat Laboratory to understand how an everyday food like beef could influence cognitive performance. It's part of broader research into nutrition and brain health. (Updated November 2024.) 

Bio

Aron Keith Barbey is director of the Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior (CB3) and the Decision Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His research investigates how intelligence emerges from the network organization and dynamics of the human connectome, adopting an interdisciplinary approach that combines methods from the psychological, computational and brain sciences. An important goal for his research is to establish a sound foundation for clinical research that aims to remediate disturbances of brain function in psychiatric illness and traumatic brain injury. Recent work has examined how nutrition supports healthy brain aging and a newly launched investigation whether beef consumption influences cognition. Barbey's team has won more than $26 million in research funding, with support coming from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Defense, the White House's BRAIN Initiative, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and private industry. (Updated November 2024.)