CYAN: Collaboratory at YorkU for the Arts and Neurosciences is a fully equipped, integrated suite of state-of-the-art core facility enabling collaboration and translation across human and non-human primate species, the arts and sciences, and academia and society. The facility, which is broadly available to researchers both in and beyond Connected Minds to conduct their research activities and serves multiple fields. includes an upgraded MRI scanner with Al computing capabilities, MRI-compatible and wearable EEG, and NIRS, with eye-tracking and human motion sensors, enhanced by motion capture and XR design in creating real-world conditions, prototyping for creating and enhancing wearable XR and neuroimaging, an art-science collaboration space, and an immersive performance space to communicate knowledge to the public through the arts and media.
Image Above: Refik Anadol and Maurice Benayoun, DïaloG. Part of MindSpaces at the Ars Electronica Festival, 2020, Centre for Research and Technology Hellas, Maastricht University. Courtesy Creative Commons
Associated Research Units and Centres at York University
Centre for Integrative and Applied Neuroscience (CIAN)
Neuroscience – the study of nervous system function — aims to explain the biological basis of human behavior in health and disease. One in three Canadians will experience a brain-related health disorder. The Centre for Integrative and Applied Neuroscience (CIAN) mobilizes research to address health, education, industry, and other applications important for the global community.
Sensorium: Centre for Digital Arts and Technology
Sensorium is a research centre for creative inquiry and experimentation at the intersection of the media arts, performance, and digital culture.
Centre for Visual Neurophysiology
The Centre for Neurophysiology at York brings together a dynamic community of researchers exploring the complexities of brain and behavior across multiple scales. Utilizing state-of-the-art neuroscience methods—including neurophysiology, neuroimaging, functional ultrasound, fNIRS, and EEG—researchers investigate fundamental and applied questions on perception, movement, navigation, memory, development, and aging.
York Centre for Vision Research
The Centre for Vision Research at York University pursues world-class, interdisciplinary research and training in visual science and its applications.
Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Society (CAIS)
The Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Society (CAIS) unites researchers who are collectively advancing state-of-the-art theory and practice of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, law, governance and public policy. The research focuses on AI systems that address societal priorities in health care, smart cities and sustainability, and are fair, explainable, reliable and trusted.
CYAN is founded on the core vision, approach, and mission of Connected Minds:
Our Vision
Powered by eminent junior and senior artists, clinicians, engineers, and neuroscientists, CYAN will help mobilize interdisciplinary collaborations facilitating co-creation in the socially responsible use of technology and open-science practices. The proposed research and infrastructure development explores how new computing technologies (designed in neuroscience and the arts) are creating new techno-social collectives in need of investigation.
Our Approach
With an interdisciplinary team of CM members from affiliated ORUs and CM secured partners, CYAN will integrate approaches and apply expertise across CM’s three pillars – neuroscience, technology, and society – to create a radically new type of facility that combines cutting-edge neuroimaging facilities with advanced technologies used in the entertainment industry and the arts to improve health and economic outcomes for Canadians.
Our Mission
CYAN will be built to capture diversity across age, sex, gender, and culture, and enable creation of immersive naturalistic environments to simulate real-world situations to more accurately and equitably assess and enhance brain function. CYAN will be utilized by the large science, engineering, and arts communities at York and Queen’s Universities. Collection and sharing of data will be enabled through York’s Neuropsychology and Kinesiology clinics, and the proposed medical school together with hospital and industry partners. Collaboration and KMb spaces will enable co-creation with and effective communication of research discoveries to key stakeholders. This transdisciplinary and applied effort will contribute to an accessible, rich brain discovery database that meaningfully translates data across platform technologies for clinical, industry, and educational applications. The strong focus on partnered research with organizations primarily serving equity-deserving communities will help to address their historic invisibility within neuroscientific research and previous assumptions about uniformity of embodied or cognitive responses to different environmental stimuli.
CYAN Facilities include:
CYAN will be led by a multi-disciplinary team of faculty members at York University.
