Cognitive neuroscience

About: Cognitive neuroscience is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4291 publications have been published within this topic receiving 247270 citations.

The Cognitive Neurosciences

Abstract: Each edition of this classic reference has proved to be a benchmark in the developing field of cognitive neuroscience. The fourth edition of The Cognitive Neurosciences continues to chart new directions in the study of the biologic underpinnings of complex cognition -- the relationship between the structural and physiological mechanisms of the nervous system and the psychological reality of the mind. The material in this edition is entirely new, with all chapters written specifically for it. Since the publication of the third edition, the field of cognitive neuroscience has made rapid and dramatic advances; fundamental stances are changing and new ideas are emerging. This edition reflects the vibrancy of the field, with research in development and evolution that finds a dynamic growth pattern becoming specific and fixed, and research in plasticity that sees the neuronal systems always changing; exciting new empirical evidence on attention that also verifies many central tenets of longstanding theories; work that shows the boundaries of the motor system pushed further into cognition; memory research that, paradoxically, provides insight into how humans imagine future events; pioneering theoretical and methodological work in vision; new findings on how genes and experience shape the language faculty; new ideas about how the emotional brain develops and operates; and research on consciousness that ranges from a novel mechanism for how the brain generates the baseline activity necessary to sustain conscious experience to a bold theoretical attempt to make the problem of qualia more tractable.

What we can do and what we cannot do with fMRI

Abstract: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is currently the mainstay of neuroimaging in cognitive neuroscience. Advances in scanner technology, image acquisition protocols, experimental design, and analysis methods promise to push forward fMRI from mere cartography to the true study of brain organization. However, fundamental questions concerning the interpretation of fMRI data abound, as the conclusions drawn often ignore the actual limitations of the methodology. Here I give an overview of the current state of fMRI, and draw on neuroimaging and physiological data to present the current understanding of the haemodynamic signals and the constraints they impose on neuroimaging data interpretation.

The Role of the Medial Frontal Cortex in Cognitive Control.

Abstract: Adaptive goal-directed behavior involves monitoring of ongoing actions and performance outcomes, and subsequent adjustments of behavior and learning. We evaluate new findings in cognitive neuroscience concerning cortical interactions that subserve the recruitment and implementation of such cognitive control. A review of primate and human studies, along with a meta-analysis of the human functional neuroimaging literature, suggest that the detection of unfavorable outcomes, response errors, response conflict, and decision uncertainty elicits largely overlapping clusters of activation foci in an extensive part of the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC). A direct link is delineated between activity in this area and subsequent adjustments in performance. Emerging evidence points to functional interactions between the pMFC and the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), so that monitoring-related pMFC activity serves as a signal that engages regulatory processes in the LPFC to implement performance adjustments.

The prefrontal cortex

Abstract: The Prefrontal Cortex, Fifth Edition, provides users with a thoroughly updated version of this comprehensive work that has historically served as the classic reference on this part of the brain. The book offers a unifying, interdisciplinary perspective that is lacking in other volumes written about the frontal lobes, and is, once again, written by the award-winning author who discovered "memory cells," the physiological substrate of working memory. The fifth edition constitutes a comprehensive update, including all the major advances made on the physiology and cognitive neuroscience of the region since publication in 2008. All chapters have been fully revised, and the overview of prefrontal functions now interprets experimental data within the theoretical framework of the new paradigm of cortical structure and dynamics (the Cognit Paradigm), addressing the accompanying social, economic, and cultural implications. * Provides a distinctly interdisciplinary view of the prefrontal cortex, covering all major methodologies, from comparative anatomy to modern imaging* Unique analysis and synthesis of a large body of basic and clinical data on the subject (more than 2000 references)* Written by an award-winning author who discovered "memory cells," the physiological substrate of working memory* Synthesizes evidence that the prefrontal cortex constitutes a complex pre-adaptive system* Incorporates emerging study of the role of the frontal lobes in social, economic, and cultural adaptation

The functional architecture of human empathy

Abstract: Empathy accounts for the naturally occurring subjective experience of similarity between the feelings expressed by self and others without loosing sight of whose feelings belong to whom. Empathy involves not only the affective experience of the other person’s actual or inferred emotional state but also some minimal recognition and understanding of another’s emotional state. In light of multiple levels of analysis ranging from developmental psychology, social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and clinical neuropsychology, this article proposes a model of empathy that involves parallel and distributed processing in a number of dissociable computational mechanisms. Shared neural representations, self-awareness, mental flexibility, and emotion regulation constitute the basic macrocomponents of empathy, which are underpinned by specific neural systems. This functional model may be used to make specific predictions about the various empathy deficits that can be encountered in different forms of social and neu...