The Neurosciences Institute

[1] Active mainly between 1981 and 2012, NSI sponsored theoretical, computational, and experimental work on consciousness, brain-inspired robotics, learning and memory, sensory processing, and motor control.

Designed by the firm Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, the three-building complex received much acclaim for its Modernist style[3][4] and especially for an auditorium[5] that became a favored venue for music and performing arts in the area.

In October 2012, plagued by financial problems and as part of a sharp contraction in its research efforts, NSI moved into leased space in an office building in the village of La Jolla, several miles from its old location.

In its very early years, NSI sponsored conferences, workshops, and other activities for visiting scientists; these programs were generally organized around a focused research problem.

[10] In 1993, following its relocation to San Diego, NSI added a program of experimental research, which would eventually include molecular, cellular, systems, and behavioral studies and would utilize flies, rodents, non-human primates, and humans.

What remained of NSI was housed, in the year immediately preceding Edelman's death, several miles away in rented office space in the La Jolla business district.

It was bordered by TSRI to the west, the Sanford-Burnham Institute to the north, the University of California, San Diego to the south, and numerous biotechnology and pharmaceutical research companies to the east and in the immediate surrounding area.

Edelman has said that, in selecting an architect, his goal was to find one who could realize his vision of a "scientific monastery" where creative study of the brain could be conducted with few constraining rules and unlimited opportunities for communication.

Considered to be among the most acoustically impressive small performance halls in the United States, the auditorium was built with an original system of faceted, sound-dispersing plaster panels that cover its walls and ceiling, so that the same sound can be heard in every seat.