Neuroscience for Human Dignity and the Good We Share
We’re fighting for better ways to see and understand the brain — so that learning, illness, and recovery can be approached with greater care and responsibility.
At the University of Notre Dame, neuroscience opens new ways of understanding the human mind and the lives it shapes. Advances in brain imaging now allow us to see the brain with remarkable precision, revealing the constellation of networks that underlie perception, memory, language, and thought. Once uncovered, insights from neuroscience move beyond the laboratory, shaping how learning is defined, how mental illness is understood, and how responsibility and care are imagined.
As we build the future of neuroscience at Notre Dame, our aim is not to pursue knowledge for its own sake, but to strengthen our understanding of the conditions that promote human flourishing and to advance neuroscience in service of the common good.
“At Notre Dame, we have a remarkable opportunity to lead in neuroscience because of the breadth of expertise — not only in psychology and neuroscience, but also in the humanities and social sciences.”
In the News
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EurekAlert! – Key to human intelligence lies in how brain networks work together
January 26, 2026
“Neuroscience has been very successful at explaining what particular networks do, but much less successful at explaining how a single, coherent mind emerges from their interaction,” said Aron Barbey, the Andrew J. McKenna Family Professor of Psychology in Notre Dame’s Department of Psychology.
