A career of harnessing group variability.

Neuroscience research, particularly in brain-injured patients, is often hampered by the problems of variability of performance among the individuals included in what seems like a well-defined supposedly homogeneous group. This review presents examples from the author's research in traumatic brain injury (TBI) and the effects of frontal lobe focal pathology to illustrate how variability was explored and "harnessed" to advance the understanding of specific brain-behaviour relations and the role of the frontal lobes in human behaviour. A final section summarizes how this approach informed the establishment of an administrative structure that integrates different types of information (genetic to behavioural) and basic and clinical science to improve diagnoses and care. (PsycINFO Database Record