The Cognitive Science Lab (CSL) received the grant in 2024 under the Life Sciences FIST (FIST-LS) programme.
Chennai: The International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIIT Hyderabad) has launched BrainLab, an advanced human electroencephalography (EEG) research facility to enable cutting-edge research into how the human brain processes information, attention, perception and behaviour.
The new facility has been established with support from the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, under the Fund for Improvement of S&T Infrastructure (DST-FIST) programme. The Cognitive Science Lab (CSL) received the grant in 2024 under the Life Sciences FIST (FIST-LS) programme. The grant-winning team comprised Prof. Bapi Raju, Dr. Vishnu Sreekumar, Dr. Bhaktee Dongaonkar, Dr. Vinoo Alluri, Dr. Priyanka Srivastava, and Dr. Kavita Vemuri.
The facility is equipped with a 128-channel high-density EEG system, a 32-channel mobile EEG system and a digitiser for precise electrode-position tracking. An advanced research-grade eye-tracking system has also been integrated with the EEG setup, enabling researchers to synchronise brain activity with gaze patterns and pupil-based measures of attention. Additional physiological measures, including galvanic skin response (GSR), can also be recorded using compatible sensors.
The new infrastructure will allow IIIT Hyderabad researchers to conduct controlled cognitive neuroscience experiments with participants from Indian populations, generating original datasets rather than relying primarily on datasets collected elsewhere. It is expected to support research spanning cognitive science, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, language, perception, attention, learning and human-computer interaction.
“This facility marks an important step in building experimental cognitive science at IIIT Hyderabad. It gives our researchers the infrastructure to ask new questions and generate high-quality data from our own populations, while creating opportunities for interdisciplinary research across cognitive science, neuroscience and technology,” said Dr. Vishnu Sreekumar, the faculty in-charge of the facility.
The EEG Lab will function as a shared research facility and will be accessible to IIIT Hyderabad faculty and students, as well as startups, industry and external research groups, subject to an access charge covering consumables and maintenance. Details of the access process will soon be available on the Institute’s website.
The new facility is also expected to become a platform for training and capacity building. Courses, workshops and summer schools are being planned around the infrastructure, with the first workshop scheduled for December 10–11, 2026, as part of the pre-conference activities of the Annual Conference of Cognitive Science (ACCS) 2026.
The EEG Lab is the first step in a larger expansion of experimental cognitive science infrastructure at IIIT Hyderabad. Future plans include facilities for neuromodulation and sleep research, with the Centre working towards building a major hub for both fundamental and applied cognitive science.
“Notably, the grant was awarded under DST’s Life Sciences FIST (FIST-LS) programme, which traditionally supports core life sciences research. To the best of the Centre’s knowledge, this is the first FIST-LS award for a Cognitive Science proposal — marking an important recognition of the field’s interdisciplinary scope”, said Prof. Bapi Raju, the Head of the Cognitive Science Lab, IIITH.
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