The Land Mondrian Experiment

Welcome

The Laboratory of Neurobiology is devoted to the study of the visual brain, its organization and its functioning in health and in disease.

We use a variety of techniques: anatomical to study the structure and connections of the visual brain; electro-physiological and electro-encephalographic to study the way in which cells constituting the visual brain respond to visual stimuli; psychophysical to study the perceptual capacities and limitations of the visual brain; imaging to determine the location and functioning of the many parallel and specialized sub-systems in the visual brain; and inactivation techniques to learn about what happens when a given area of the visual brain is temporarily and reversibly inactivated. We also study patients whose visual brain is damaged in order to characterize better how the visual brain functions.

More recently, we have used the information gained from the study of the brain over the past forty years to study the relationship of visual art to the functioning of the visual brain, the field which we refer to as neuroesthetics.

The Laboratory of Neurobiology is supported by the Wellcome Trust, London.

Latest news

  • Now available: A brain-derived metric for preferred kinetic stimuli by Semir Zeki and Jonathan Stutters is now available from Royal Society Open Biology.
  • 10 May 2012: Semir Zeki will give a talk entitled Neuroesthetics in Barcelona, Spain in a series of talks entitled Neuroscience and Society organised by the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and the Spanish Society for Neuroscience, to coincide with the Spanish Year of Neuroscience.
  • 14 June 2012: The Rome Prize will be delivered to Semir Zeki at the Conference in Honour of Scientific Research, ATENA Onlus 2012.
  • 14 June 2012: Semir Zeki will give a talk on The beautiful brain. Scienza ed arte. Ilruolo del cervello e della mente nell'interpretazione del bello at Campidoglio in Rome, Italy.
  • 28 June 2012: Prof. Chris Carey (UCL Greek and Latin) and Prof. Semir Zeki (UCL Neuroesthetics) will discuss The pursuit of Olympic ideals - physical, neural and aesthetic. Click here for details and to register for the event.
  • 18 July 2012: Prof. Heidi Johansen-Berg (University of Oxford Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain) and Prof. Semir Zeki (UCL Neuroesthetics) will discuss Olympian minds: can we train our brains for success in sports and other fields? Click here for details and to register for the event.
  • 7 October 2012: Semir Zeki will be speaking at BergamoScienza in Bergamo, Italy.