Research in the IMB spans many levels of scale and time, from human and animal behavior to genetic and epigenetic processes involved in these behaviors, and from millisecond to evolutionary timescales. While these extremes are included in many laboratories' theoretical and experimental programs, much of the work in the Institute involves the many levels of scale connecting these extremes. Active studies in the Institute include the roles of seasonal rhythms in immune systems and affective responses of Siberian hamsters and laboratory rats (Prendergast), the bidirectional influences of learning and context in primary sensory processing in the central olfactory system (Kay), influences of primate social networks on maternal behaviors (Maestripieri), kin recognition among ground squirrels (Mateo), the influence of airborne odorants on hormonal regulation and behavior (McClintock), and societal and genetic factors as determinants of fatality in breast cancer (Gehlert and McClintock).
These research programs use interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary analysis methods. Interdisciplinarity involves methods such as hormone assays as part of behavioral analysis or computational modeling as a tool to understand the dynamics of neurophysiological systems. Multidisciplinarity involves study of Behavioral Neuroscience, Psychoneuroendocrinology, Behavioral Ecology, etc. Transdisciplinarity involves the use of multiple disciplines to address a specific question that lies outside of traditional disciplinary boundaries, such as health disparities in African American women or the involvement of multiple systems in the physiological and behavioral mechanisms of depression.