Our brain supports a large number of different functions. For example, we are able to perceive the world around us, we can remember past events, we can control movements of our body, we can decide what actions to take, etc. A comprehensive understanding of each of these functions ranges from what computations the brain has to perform to achieve these functions and how they are implemented in the biological hardware down to what contributions are made by individual cells and how a function is impacted when a particular component of the system fails, which allows targeted treatment of disorders. Researchers at the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience study a variety of different functions that are supported by the nervous system, typically spanning different levels of analysis (see Research Levels) to obtain a comprehensive understanding of how a particular function is provided.
