Cognitive neuroscience

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Cognitive neuroscience

Cognitive neuroscience is an academic field concerned with the scientific study of biological substrate underlying cognition

Cognition

Cognition is the science term for "the process of thought."Its usage varies in different ways in accord with different disciplines: For example, in psychology and cognitive science it refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological Functionalism s....
, with a specific focus on the neural substrates of mental processes and their behavioral manifestations. It addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by the neural circuitry. Cognitive neuroscience is a branch of both psychology

Psychology

Psychology is an academic and applied science discipline involving the science study of human mental functions and behavior. Occasionally it also relies on symbolic hermeneutics and critical theory, although these traditions are less pronounced than in other social sciences such as sociology....
and neuroscience

Neuroscience

Neuroscience is a field devoted to the scientific study of the nervous system. The Society for Neuroscience was founded in 1969, but the study of the brain started a long time ago....
, unifying and overlapping with several sub-disciplines such as cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that investigates internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language.The school of thought arising from this approach is known as cognitivism which is interested in how people mentally represent information processing....
, psychobiology and neurobiology

Neurobiology

Neurobiology is the study of cell s of the nervous system and the organization of these cells into functional biological neural network that process information and mediate behavior....
.

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Encyclopedia

Cognitive neuroscience is an academic field concerned with the scientific study of biological substrate underlying cognition

Cognition

Psychology

Neuroscience

Cognitive psychology

Neurobiology

Neurobiology is the study of cell s of the nervous system and the organization of these cells into functional biological neural network that process information and mediate behavior....
. Before the advent of fMRI, cognitive neuroscience was called cognitive psychophysiology

Psychophysiology

Psychophysiology the branch of psychology that is concerned with the physiology bases of psychology processes. What used to be known as cognitive psychophysiology until the mid 1990's is currently called Cognitive neuroscience....
. Cognitive neuroscientists have a background in experimental psychology

Experimental psychology

Experimental psychology approaches psychology as one of the natural sciences, investigates it using the experiment. The focus of experimental psychology is on discovering the underlying processes behind behavior and the specific nature of mental life....
or neurobiology, but may spring from disciplines such as psychiatry

Psychiatry

Psychiatry is a Medicine Specialty devoted to the Treatment of mental disorders, Biomedical research and Prevention of mental disorder. The term was first coined by the German physician Johann Christian Reil in 1808....
, neurology

Neurology

Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the Central nervous system, Peripheral nervous system, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and...
, physics

Physics

Physics is the natural science which examines basic concepts such as energy, force, and spacetime and all that derives from these, such as mass, charge, matter and its Motion ....
, linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
and mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, structure, space, change, and related topics of pattern and form. Mathematicians seek out patterns whether found in numbers, space, natural science, computers, imaginary abstractions, or elsewhere....
.

Methods employed in cognitive neuroscience include experimental paradigms from psychophysics

Psychophysics

Psychophysics is a subdiscipline of psychology dealing with the relationship between physical stimulus and their subjectivity correlates, or percepts....
and cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology

Functional neuroimaging

Functional neuroimaging is the use of neuroimaging technology to measure an aspect of brain function, often with a view to understanding the relationship between activity in certain brain areas and specific mental functions....
, electrophysiological

Electrophysiology

Electrophysiology is the study of the electrical properties of biological cell s and tissues. It involves measurements of voltage change or electric current on a wide variety of scales from single ion channel proteins to whole organs like the heart....
studies of neural systems and, increasingly, cognitive genomics and behavioral genetics. Clinical studies of patients with cognitive deficits constitute an important aspect of cognitive neuroscience. The main theoretical approaches are computational neuroscience

Computational neuroscience

Computational neuroscience is an interdisciplinary science that links the diverse fields of neuroscience, cognitive science, electrical engineering, computer science, physics and mathematics....
and the more traditional, descriptive cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology

Psychometrics

Psychometrics is the field of study concerned with the theory and technique of educational and psychological measurement, which includes the measurement of knowledge, abilities, attitudes, and Wiktionary:personality traits....
.

Scientific roots

Phrenology

The first roots of cognitive neuroscience lie in phrenology, which was a pseudoscientific

Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience is any knowledge, methodology, belief, or practice that is claimed to be scientific, or that is made to appear to be scientific, but which does not adhere to the scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, or otherwise lacks scientific status....
theory that claimed that behavior could be determined by the shape of the scalp

Scalp

The scalp is the anatomical area bordered by the face anteriorly and the neck to the sides and posteriorly....
. In the early 19th century, Franz Joseph Gall

Franz Joseph Gall

Franz Joseph Gall was a neuroanatomist, physiology, and pioneer in the study of the localization of mental functions in the brain.Gall was born in Baden, in the village of Tiefenbronn to a wealthy Roman Catholic wool merchant....
and J. G. Spurzheim believed that the human brain

Human brain

The human brain is the center of the human nervous system and is a highly complex organ. It has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over five times as large as the "average brain" of a mammal with the same body size....
was localized into approximately 35 different sections. In his book, The Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General, and of the Brain in Particular, Gall claimed that a larger bump in one of these areas meant that that area of the brain was used more frequently by that person. This theory gained significant public attention, leading to the publication of phrenology journals and the creation of phrenometers, which measured the bumps on a human subject's head.

Aggregate field

Pierre Flourens, a French

France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
experimental psychologist, was one of many scientists that challenged the views of the phrenologists. Through his study of living rabbits and pigeons, he discovered that lesions to particular areas of the brain produced no discernible change in behavior. He proposed the theory that the brain is an aggregate field, meaning that different areas of the brain participated in behavior.

Later localizationists

Studies performed in Europe by scientists such as John Hughlings Jackson

John Hughlings Jackson

John Hughlings Jackson, Fellow of the Royal Society , was an England neurologist; born at Providence Green, Green Hammerton, near Harrogate, Yorkshire....
caused the localizationist view to re-emerge as the primary view of behavior. Jackson studied patients with brain damage

Brain damage

Brain damage, or acquired brain injury, is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells....
, particularly those with epilepsy

Epilepsy

Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent unprovoked seizure s. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain....
. He discovered that the epileptic patients often made the same clonic

Clonus

Clonus is a series of involuntary muscular contractions due to sudden stretching of the muscle. Clonus is a sign of certain neurological conditions, and is particularly associated with upper motor neuron lesions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , stroke, multiple sclerosis, Spinal cord and hepatic encephalopathy....
and tonic movements of muscle during their seizures, leading Jackson to believe that they must be occurring in the same place every time. Jackson proposed a topographic map of the brain, which was critical to future understanding of the brain lobes.

In 1861, French neurologist Paul Broca

Paul Broca

Paul Pierre Broca was a France physician, anatomist, and anthropologist. He was born in Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, France. He is best known for his research on Broca's area, a region of the frontal lobe that has been named after him....
came across a man who was able to understand language but unable to speak. The man could only produce the sound "tan". It was later discovered that the man had damage to an area of his left frontal lobe now known as Broca's area

Broca's area

Broca's area is a region of the brain responsible for speech production.The importance of Broca?s area in producing language has been recognized since Paul Pierre Broca reported impairments in two patients he encountered....
. Carl Wernicke, a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
neurologist, found a similar patient, except that this patient could speak fluently but non-sensibly. The patient had been the victim of a stroke

Stroke

A stroke is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to a disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. According to the National Stroke Association, a "stroke" occurs when a blood clot blocks and artery or a blood vessel breaks, interrupting blood flow to an area of the brain....
, and could not understand spoken or written language. This patient had a lesion in the area where the left parietal and temporal lobes meet, now known as Wernicke's area

Wernicke's area

Wernicke's area is a part of the human brain that forms part of the Cerebral cortex , on the posterior section of the superior temporal gyrus, encircling the auditory cortex, on the Sylvian fissure ....
. These cases strongly supported the localizationists views, because a lesion caused a specific behavioral change in both of these patients.

In 1870, German physicians Eduard Hitzig

Eduard Hitzig

Eduard Hitzig was a German neurologist and neuropsychiatrist born in Berlin.He studied medicine in Berlin and W?rzburg, and had as instructors, famous men such as Emil Du Bois-Reymond , Rudolf Virchow , Moritz Heinrich Romberg and Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal ....
and Gustav Fritsch

Gustav Fritsch

Gustav Theodor Fritsch was a Germany anatomist and physiologist from Cottbus, best known for his work with neuropsychiatrist Eduard Hitzig on the electric localization of the motor areas of the brain....
published their findings about the behavior of animals. Hitzig and Fritsch ran an electrical current through the cerebral cortex

Cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex is a structure within the brain that plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness....
of a dog

Dog

The dog is a domesticated subspecies of the Gray Wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties....
, causing the dog to produce characteristic movements based on where the current was applied. Since different areas produced different movements, the physicians concluded that behavior was rooted at the cellular level. German neuroanatomist Korbinian Brodmann

Korbinian Brodmann

Korbinian Brodmann was a Germany neurologist who became famous for his definition of the cerebral cortex into 52 distinct regions from their cytoarchitecture characteristics....
used tissue staining techniques developed by Franz Nissl

Franz Nissl

Franz Nissl was a Germany neuropathologist....
to see the different types of cells in the brain. Though this study, Brodmann concluded in 1909 that the human brain consisted of fifty-two distinct areas, now named Brodmann area

Brodmann area

A Brodmann area is a region of the cerebral cortex defined based on its cytoarchitecture, or organization of cells.Brodmann areas were originally defined and numbered by Korbinian Brodmann based on the organization of neurons he observed in the cortex using the Franz Nissl staining....
s. Many of Brodmann's distinctions were very accurate, such as differentiating Brodmann area 17 from Brodmann area 18

Brodmann area 18

Sorry, no overview for this topic
.

The neuron doctrine

In the early 20th century, Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Santiago Ram?n y Cajal was a Spanish people histology, physician, pathologist and Nobel laureate. His pioneering investigations of the microscopic structure of the brain were so original and influential that he is considered by many to be the greatest neuroscientist of all time....
and Camillo Golgi

Camillo Golgi

Camillo Golgi was an Italy physician, pathologist and scientist....
began working on the structure of the neuron. Golgi developed a silver staining method that could entirely stain several cells in a particular area, leading him to believe that neurons were directly connected with each other in one cytoplasm

Cytoplasm

The cytoplasm is the part of a Cell that is enclosed within the plasma membrane. In eukaryote cells the cytoplasm contains organelles, such as mitochondrion, that are filled with liquid kept separate from the rest of the cytoplasm by biological membranes....
. Cajal challenged this view after staining areas of the brain that had less myelin

Myelin

Myelin is an electrically-insulating dielectric material that forms a layer, the myelin sheath. Usually, myelin surrounds only the axon of a neuron....
and discovering that neurons were discrete cells. Cajal also discovered that cells transmit electrical signals down the neuron in one direction only. Both Golgi and Cajal won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded once a year by the Swedish Karolinska Institutet. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and Physiology or Medic...
in 1906 for this work on the neuron doctrine.

Foundation of the science

On September 11, 1956, a large-scale meeting of cognitivists took place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private university research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States....
. George A. Miller presented his "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two

The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two

"The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information" is a 1956 paper by the cognitive psychology George Armitage Miller of Princeton University's Princeton University Department of Psychology....
" paper while Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky

Avram Noam Chomsky is an United States linguistics, philosopher, cognitive science, political activist, author, and lecturer. He is an Institute Professor emeritus and professor emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology....
and Newell

Allen Newell

Allen Newell was a researcher in computer science and cognitive psychology at the RAND corporation and at Carnegie Mellon University?s Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science, Tepper School of Business, and Department of Psychology....
& Simon

Herbert Simon

Herbert Alexander Simon was an United States psychologist whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, computer science, public administration, economics, management, philosophy of science and sociology and was a professor, most notably, at Carnegie Mellon University....
presented their findings on computer science

Computer science

Computer science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation, and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems....
. Ulric Neisser

Ulric Neisser

Ulric Neisser is an United States psychologist and member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He is a faculty member at Cornell University....
commented on many of the findings at this meeting in his 1967 book Cognitive Psychology. The term "psychology" had been waning in the 1950s and 1960s, causing the field to be referred to as "cognitive science". Behavioralists such as Miller began to focus on the representation of language rather than general behavior. David Marr's proposal of the hierarchical representation of memory caused many psychologists to embrace the idea that mental skills required significant processing in the brain, including algorithm

Algorithm

In mathematics, computing, linguistics and related subjects, an algorithm is a sequence of finite instructions, often used for calculation and data processing....
s.

Cognitive neuroscience topics

A large portion of current research in cognitive neuroscience involves doing experiments that would previously have been described as cognitive psychology, but doing them using fMRI scanners to locate the brain regions involved. Topics that have been investigated in this way include:

attention
Attention

Attention is the cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring other things. Examples include listening carefully to what someone is saying while ignoring other conversations in a room or listening to a cell phone conversation while driving a car....
change blindness
Change blindness

In visual perception, change blindness is the phenomenon that occurs when a person viewing a visual scene apparently fails to detect large changes in the scene....
consciousness
Consciousness

Consciousness is a difficult term to define, because the word is used and understood in a wide variety of ways, so that it frequently happens that what one person sees as a definition of consciousness is seen by others as about something else altogether....
decision-making
learning
Learning

Learning is acquiring new knowledge, behaviors, skills, Value s, preferences or understanding, and may involve synthesizing different types of information....
memory
Memory

In psychology, memory is an organism's mental ability to store, retain and recall information. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of mnemonic....
mirror neurons
mismatch negativity
Mismatch negativity

The mismatch negativity or mismatch field is a component of the event-related potential to an odd stimulus in a sequence of stimuli. It arises from electrical activity in the brain and is studied within the field of cognitive neuroscience and psychology....

Cognitive neuroscience methods

Experimental methods of specific psychology fields include:

Psychophysics
Psychophysics

Psychophysics is a subdiscipline of psychology dealing with the relationship between physical stimulus and their subjectivity correlates, or percepts....
Cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology

Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that investigates internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language.The school of thought arising from this approach is known as cognitivism which is interested in how people mentally represent information processing....
Cognitive neuropsychology
Cognitive neuropsychology

Cognitive neuropsychology is a branch of neuropsychology that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relates to specific psychology processes....
Cognitive psychophysiology
Physiological psychology

Physiological psychology is a subdivision of biological psychology that studies the neural mechanisms of perception and behavior through direct manipulation of the brains of nonhuman animal subjects in controlled experiments....

Cognitive neuroscience was called cognitive psychophysiology

Physiological psychology

Physiological psychology is a subdivision of biological psychology that studies the neural mechanisms of perception and behavior through direct manipulation of the brains of nonhuman animal subjects in controlled experiments....
before the advent of functional MRI. Cognitive psychophysiology

Physiological psychology

Electroencephalography

Electroencephalography is the recording of electrical activity along the scalp produced by the firing of neurons within the brain. In clinical contexts, EEG refers to the recording of the brain's spontaneous electrical activity over a short period of time, usually 20-40 minutes, as recorded from multiple electrodes placed on the scalp....
and other electrophysiological methods. The 1980s brought new instruments to Cognitive psychophysiology

Physiological psychology

MEG
Magnetoencephalography

Magnetoencephalography is an imaging technique used to measure the magnetic fields produced by electrical activity in the human brain via extremely sensitive devices such as SQUID ....
PET
Positron emission tomography

Positron emission tomography is a nuclear medicine medical imaging technique which produces a three-dimensional image or picture of functional processes in the body....
SPECT
fMRI
Single-unit recording

Related WikiBooks

wikibooks:Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
Wikibook on consciousness
Cognitive Neuroscience chapter of the Neuroscience WikiBook

Cognitive neuroscience

Scientific roots

Phrenology

Aggregate field

Later localizationists

The neuron doctrine

Foundation of the science

Cognitive neuroscience topics

Cognitive neuroscience methods

Related WikiBooks

See also

Further reading

External links