Since its inception in late 2001, the Wolfson Research Institute has housed one of the foremost UK centres for research in cognitive neuroscience, the Department of Psychology's Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit (CNRU). Its objective is to study the psychological processes and brain systems underlying a range of human cognitive functions.

The work involves the systematic behavioural and psychological study of both normal and brain-damaged volunteers, but in addition it takes advantage of such techniques as functional brain imaging (fMRI), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), event-related potentials (ERPs) visuomotor performance, eye tracking, biophysiological recording. Where they lead to a convergence of outcomes, these different methodologies, in various combinations, allow progressively stronger conclusions to be reached about the brain processes underlying different aspects of human cognition.