The Centre for Cognitive Neurosciences was originally established in 1948, when it was known as the Electroencephalography (EEG) Department. It was the first EEG laboratory established anywhere in India. The EEG Department initially had a 6 channel and then an 8 channel electroencephalograph machine. The department was renamed as the Psychophysiology and Neurophysiology Laboratory in 1995 and more recently, in 2004, its name was changed to the Centre for Cognitive Neurosciences. In 2012, it was renamed as K S Mani Centre for Cognitive Neurosciences.

At present, the Centre has two sections – a clinical section and a research section. The clinical section possesses a 21 channel paper electroencephalogram, a 32 channel quantitative electroencephalogram and a 40 channel video electroencephalogram as well as equipment for recording an electromyogram (EMG), nerve conduction velocity (NCV), visual evoked potentials (VEP), somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEP), brainstem auditory evoked response (BAER) and the galvanic skin response (GSR). The research section possesses Dense Array EEG acquisition systems (64, 128 and 192 channels), Evoked Response Potential (ERP) acquisition units (40 and 128 channels), a 40 channel polysomnography (PSG) unit and two state-of-the-art repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) units. The Centre has acquired advanced signal processing software such as Advanced Source Analysis (ASA), Brain Electrical Source Analysis (BESA), Neuroscan, Curry, Matlab and Mathematica. The Centre is quite research intensive with several theses and dissertations being done each year on topics related to electroencephalography, evoked potentials and rTMS.

The Centre has been a pioneer in the field of neuroscience research in the country. Impairments of cognitive processes in psychiatric disorders especially schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and substance dependence using event-related potentials, power spectrum and coherence analyses of dense array EEGs have been studied. Pharmaco-EEG studies involving the effect of various drugs like aripiprazole, clozapine and olanzapine on high density EEG signals have also been studied. Studies on lithium and clozapine are ongoing. After the acquisition of the polysomnography unit, the impairment in sleep architecture of patients with psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, mood disorders and substance dependence has opened up a new vista for further studies at the Centre. Therapeutic studies involving the effect of medications like zolpidem, milnacipran and olanzapine on the sleep architecture have been completed. The therapeutic potential of rTMS in many psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, OCD, bipolar disorder, alcohol and opioid dependence and epilepsy has been conducted. Recently a new state-of-the-art transcranial Magnetic Stimulation named Magstim Rapid2 along with a host of neurosciences software including BESA, MATLAB etc. have been acquired. With the acquisition of the fMRI-EEG facility in the current financial term, the centre has developed into one of its kind in the country.

Apart from all these endeavours, the Centre also runs a weekly Epilepsy Clinic in the Outpatient Department of the Institute (Thursdays) and at Deepshikha, ICD & MH, Ranchi (Wednesdays). Our weekly Epilepsy Clinic starts with a regular group meeting which is primarily conducted by the patients and caregivers which gives them a chance to share their viewpoints and experiences with treatment of their condition. Pamphlets and hand-outs on various aspects of epilepsy have been prepared in Hindi to benefit larger sections of the community. The Centre also carries out regular group therapies, public awareness programs and rural camps at Ramakrishna Mission, Baripada and Pakur (Odisha) for case-identification and management. For more than a decade now, a self-help group for epilepsy patients has been running under the guidance of the Centre.

The number of total investigations in 2020 was 4528.