~ Cognitive Neuroscience ~
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Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific study of neural mechanisms that underlie mental processes and their behavioral correlates. These include learning and memory, sensation and perception, intellect, knowledge acquisition, thinking and reasoning, and what is referred to as the executive functions (such as decision-making, judgment, impulsivity, attention, goal attainment) that comprise a large grouping of important higher-order functions that is housed within the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Cognitive neuroscience is used in the application of medicine, clinical psychology, psychiatry, education, and economics. In its simplest sense, cognitive neuroscience is the study of the combination of brain and mind. It is the marriage between the co-measurement of brain activity and the ability to
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perform cognitive activities. It can be said that cognitive neuroscience is interested in how the brain created the mind.
Neuroscience itself is concerned with early human (and primate) development, structural and functional neuroplasticity, sensory and perceptual systems, the neural correlates of the motor system, attentional processes, all aspects of memory including the process of learning, the neural correlates of language, the higher cognitive functions such as knowledge, decision-making, category specificity, imagery, number processing and calculation, the neurophysiological bases, modulation, processing, and affective style of emotion, the neural correlates of consciousness, evolution as it pertains to the functional organization of the mind, sex differences, theory of mind, social reasoning, adaptive models of learning, and behavioral genetics. In other words, it is everything about the functionality of the brain.
According to the Society for Neuroscience, the following are considered core concepts for the field of neuroscience:
One question I am often asked is the distinction between cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology, and behavioral neuroscience. Both cognitive neuroscience and behavioral neuroscience are academic and research-based fields of study, while neuropsychology has a clinical application through the testing and assessment of brain function by a series of non-intrusive standardized tests and measures for the purpose of evaluating and/or differentiating normal and abnormal behaviors. Behavioral neuroscience focuses exclusively on the biological aspects of behavior and used to be referred to as physiological psychology.
The early philosophers through the current day psychologists continue to debate and opine about the separation (or not) of mind and body, and brain and mind, and body and soul. In other words, the dualistic nature of sentient, but in particular human beings. Cognitive neuroscience addresses both in one interdisciplinary model.
Perhaps the most central argument within the cognitive neurosciences is the debate between nativism and constructivism, and the outcropping of this debate which produced the subfield known as neuroconstructivism. Nativism, a concept that is not necessarily specific to the cognitive neurosciences, but in this case holds that the concepts, mental structures and capacities of the brain are by and large innate, or hardwired. Its opposing theory is that of the constructivists that posit how we learn and in some instances, how we know what we know, is a product of our experiences, that which we learn and are exposed to; a type of nature vs nurture debate. Nowhere do we see this debate more clearly than the area of linguistic nativism espoused by the famed linguist and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky.
Neuroconstructivism is the brain-child of the late British developmental neurocognitivist Annette Karmiloff-Smith. Neuroconstructivism is concerned with the construction of representations and neural substrates, particularly the activation patterns, within the post-natal developing brain, and takes into account the areas of probabilistic epigenesis, neural constructivism, and the interactive specialization between structural and functional brain development.
Perhaps the newest multidisciplinary subspecialty within the cognitive neurosciences is that of educational neuroscience, a meld of developmental psychology, educational psychology, cognition, biology, and neuroscience. Educational neuroscience brings science and scientific experimentation to the field of education in the hope of discovering the most cutting-edge scientific principles of how we learn. Educational neuroscience has emerged amidst the growing frustration of having left education outside of the discipline of science.
Want to know more? You can follow my blogs, attend a webinar or seminar, or take an e-course.
Neuroscience itself is concerned with early human (and primate) development, structural and functional neuroplasticity, sensory and perceptual systems, the neural correlates of the motor system, attentional processes, all aspects of memory including the process of learning, the neural correlates of language, the higher cognitive functions such as knowledge, decision-making, category specificity, imagery, number processing and calculation, the neurophysiological bases, modulation, processing, and affective style of emotion, the neural correlates of consciousness, evolution as it pertains to the functional organization of the mind, sex differences, theory of mind, social reasoning, adaptive models of learning, and behavioral genetics. In other words, it is everything about the functionality of the brain.
According to the Society for Neuroscience, the following are considered core concepts for the field of neuroscience:
- The brain is the body’s most complex organ.
- Neurons communicate using both electrical and chemical signals.
- Genetically determined circuits are the foundation of the nervous system.
- Life experiences change the nervous system.
- Intelligence arises as the brain reasons, plans, and solves problems.
- The brain makes it possible to communicate knowledge through language.
- The human brain endows us with a natural curiosity to understand how the world works.
- Fundamental discoveries promote healthy living and treatment of disease
One question I am often asked is the distinction between cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology, and behavioral neuroscience. Both cognitive neuroscience and behavioral neuroscience are academic and research-based fields of study, while neuropsychology has a clinical application through the testing and assessment of brain function by a series of non-intrusive standardized tests and measures for the purpose of evaluating and/or differentiating normal and abnormal behaviors. Behavioral neuroscience focuses exclusively on the biological aspects of behavior and used to be referred to as physiological psychology.
The early philosophers through the current day psychologists continue to debate and opine about the separation (or not) of mind and body, and brain and mind, and body and soul. In other words, the dualistic nature of sentient, but in particular human beings. Cognitive neuroscience addresses both in one interdisciplinary model.
Perhaps the most central argument within the cognitive neurosciences is the debate between nativism and constructivism, and the outcropping of this debate which produced the subfield known as neuroconstructivism. Nativism, a concept that is not necessarily specific to the cognitive neurosciences, but in this case holds that the concepts, mental structures and capacities of the brain are by and large innate, or hardwired. Its opposing theory is that of the constructivists that posit how we learn and in some instances, how we know what we know, is a product of our experiences, that which we learn and are exposed to; a type of nature vs nurture debate. Nowhere do we see this debate more clearly than the area of linguistic nativism espoused by the famed linguist and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky.
Neuroconstructivism is the brain-child of the late British developmental neurocognitivist Annette Karmiloff-Smith. Neuroconstructivism is concerned with the construction of representations and neural substrates, particularly the activation patterns, within the post-natal developing brain, and takes into account the areas of probabilistic epigenesis, neural constructivism, and the interactive specialization between structural and functional brain development.
Perhaps the newest multidisciplinary subspecialty within the cognitive neurosciences is that of educational neuroscience, a meld of developmental psychology, educational psychology, cognition, biology, and neuroscience. Educational neuroscience brings science and scientific experimentation to the field of education in the hope of discovering the most cutting-edge scientific principles of how we learn. Educational neuroscience has emerged amidst the growing frustration of having left education outside of the discipline of science.
Want to know more? You can follow my blogs, attend a webinar or seminar, or take an e-course.