Dr. Cotman's laboratory and other UCI investigators have made many important contributions to our understanding of aging and Alzheimer’s disease. In 1995, after a process of extensive peer review, the University of California system formally designated his program as an Organized Research Unit within the University of California system. The Organized Research Unit is known officially as The Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia, and Dr. Cotman is its first Director. Organized Research Unit status is one of the most prestigious program rankings, attained only by a limited number of applicants from the University of California's nine campuses and five medical schools. This University designation means that the Institute is an independent "department" within the University structure. This allows the Institute to pursue multidisciplinary research at the clinical and basic science levels. This Institutional status supports an infrastructure to share resources between investigators, which optimizes the use of equipment and staff. The Institute also serves to attract clinical and research scientists and students from around the world. In 1998, the Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia moved into new research space in the Gillespie Neuroscience Research Facility. This state-of-the-art building is equipped with modern tissue culture facilities, walk-in cold rooms, a conventional and confocal microscope room, dark room, animal vivarium, ample wet lab space and administrative offices.

A unique feature of the Institute is that it brings together basic scientists studying molecular biology, neurobiology, biochemistry, and computer science with clinical researchers specializing in the diagnoses and treatment of patients with dementia, conducting clinical trials, and studying the normal aging process in "Successful Agers". The Institute also contains a Tissue Repository that provides neuropathological confirmation of diagnoses and provides brain specimens to researchers studying the mechanisms causing brain pathology. At any given time, over 50 individuals are members of the Institute. Members include physicians, psychologists, nurses, and support staff to research faculty, post-doctoral fellows, graduate students and technicians. Currently, the Institute includes faculty from several traditional departments, including Psychobiology, Anatomy & Neurobiology, Physiology, Neurology, Psychiatry, Cognitive Sciences, Engineering, and Information and Computer Science. Scientists at the Institute focus on the basic cellular and molecular mechanisms of brain aging and Alzheimer’s disease, and seek to relate these mechanisms to the operation of brain circuitry. In the clinic, these discoveries are then related to cognitive and behavioral function in the aged brain and in Alzheimer’s disease.