We conduct research with our own Computational Cluster and in our Cognitive Neuroscience laboratory:

Computational Cluster

Little girl playING WITH A COMPUTER

The “Brain” computational cluster has 37 computer nodes and 1 login node. In July 2018 13 new nodes were added, including a node with GPUs capacity, and one new frontend node.
Each one of the new nodes has two 2,1 Ghz Intel Xeon E5-2684 16-core processors with 256 GB of RAM, and 1TB of local disk storage.
The last 24 nodes have two 2-GHz Intel Xeon E5 2650 8-Core processors with 32 GB of RAM, and 300 GB of local disk storage.
Each node has access to a network file system, providing more than 25 TB of disk storage with an automatic backup system for the main partitions.
All the machines in the cluster are interconnected by a high-speed network with a oad balance system at 10GB of speed

 

Behavioral laboratory (CBCLaB)

The Cognitive Neuroscience laboratory is located on the -1 floor of the Mercè Rodoreda building 24 on UPF's Ciutadella Campus (how to get there). The lab has 15 rooms, a reception area and a small workshop that total about 120m2:

Laboratory spaces map

All the rooms have a control area where the researcher accompanies the participant at all times and, depending on the room’s characteristics, are used for different types of studies:

Rooms A, B, C and D have electromagnetic isolation (Faraday cage) and are mainly used for electroencephalographic recordings.
Rooms O, N, M and L, larger rooms, are used for  studies with children and infants.
The rest of the rooms are used for behavioral studies with adults.

All rooms have:

  • Acoustic insulation of about 55dB
  • Rubber flooring that favors noise damping
  • Air conditioning independent from the rest of the building which we control and is installed to minimize the background noise.
  • Adjustable LED lighting, and an
  • Isolated communication network that allows communication between machines without external influence

We can apply different techniques in this research space:

  • Event-related potential (ERP) recording
  • Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
  • Eye tracking
  • Vibrotactile studies