Computational neuroscience is a branch of neuroscience which employs mathematical models, computer simulations, theoretical analysis and abstractions of the brain to understand the principles that govern the development, structure, physiology and cognitive abilities of the nervous system.
The consciousness and binding problem is the problem of how objects, background and abstract or emotional features are combined into a single experience.
Brainwave entrainment, also referred to as brainwave synchronization or neural entrainment, refers to the observation that brainwaves will naturally synchronize to the rhythm of periodic external stimuli, such as flickering lights, speech, music, or tactile stimuli.
The intraparietal sulcus (IPS) is located on the lateral surface of the parietal lobe, and consists of an oblique and a horizontal portion. The IPS contains a series of functionally distinct subregions that have been intensively investigated using both single cell neurophysiology in primates and human functional neuroimaging. Its principal functions are related to perceptual-motor coordination and visual attention, which allows for visually-guided pointing, grasping, and object manipulation that can produce a desired effect.
Attentional shift occurs when directing attention to a point increases the efficiency of processing of that point and includes inhibition to decrease attentional resources to unwanted or irrelevant inputs. Shifting of attention is needed to allocate attentional resources to more efficiently process information from a stimulus. Research has shown that when an object or area is attended, processing operates more efficiently. Task switching costs occur when performance on a task suffers due to the increased effort added in shifting attention. There are competing theories that attempt to explain why and how attention is shifted as well as how attention is moved through space.
Stanislas Dehaene is a French author and cognitive neuroscientist whose research centers on a number of topics, including numerical cognition, the neural basis of reading and the neural correlates of consciousness. As of 2017, he is a professor at the Collège de France and, since 1989, the director of INSERM Unit 562, "Cognitive Neuroimaging".
Neuroanthropology is the study of the relationship between culture and the brain. This field of study emerged from a 2008 conference of the American Anthropological Association. It is based on the premise that lived experience leaves identifiable patterns in brain structure, which then feed back into cultural expression.The exact mechanisms are so far ill defined and remain speculative.
The concept of motor cognition grasps the notion that cognition is embodied in action, and that the motor system participates in what is usually considered as mental processing, including those involved in social interaction. The fundamental unit of the motor cognition paradigm is action, defined as the movements produced to satisfy an intention towards a specific motor goal, or in reaction to a meaningful event in the physical and social environments. Motor cognition takes into account the preparation and production of actions, as well as the processes involved in recognizing, predicting, mimicking, and understanding the behavior of other people. This paradigm has received a great deal of attention and empirical support in recent years from a variety of research domains including embodied cognition, developmental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and social psychology.
Earl Keith Miller is a cognitive neuroscientist whose research focuses on neural mechanisms of cognitive, or executive, control. Earl K. Miller is the Picower Professor of Neuroscience with the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the Chief Scientist and co-founder of SplitSage.
Cultural neuroscience is a field of research that focuses on the interrelation between a human's cultural environment and neurobiological systems. The field particularly incorporates ideas and perspectives from related domains like anthropology, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience to study sociocultural influences on human behaviors. Such impacts on behavior are often measured using various neuroimaging methods, through which cross-cultural variability in neural activity can be examined.
Michael Steven Anthony Graziano is an American scientist and novelist who is currently a professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Princeton University. His scientific research focuses on the brain basis of awareness. He has proposed the "attention schema" theory, an explanation of how, and for what adaptive advantage, brains attribute the property of awareness to themselves. His previous work focused on how the cerebral cortex monitors the space around the body and controls movement within that space. Notably he has suggested that the classical map of the body in motor cortex, the homunculus, is not correct and is better described as a map of complex actions that make up the behavioral repertoire. His publications on this topic have had a widespread impact among neuroscientists but have also generated controversy. His novels rely partly on his background in psychology and are known for surrealism or magic realism. Graziano also composes music including symphonies and string quartets.
Cross modal plasticity is the adaptive reorganization of neurons to integrate the function of two or more sensory systems. Cross modal plasticity is a type of neuroplasticity and often occurs after sensory deprivation due to disease or brain damage. The reorganization of the neural network is greatest following long-term sensory deprivation, such as congenital blindness or pre-lingual deafness. In these instances, cross modal plasticity can strengthen other sensory systems to compensate for the lack of vision or hearing. This strengthening is due to new connections that are formed to brain cortices that no longer receive sensory input.
Richard Alan Andersen is an American neuroscientist. He is the James G. Boswell Professor of Neuroscience at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. His research focuses on visual physiology with an emphasis on translational research to humans in the field of neuroprosthetics, brain-computer interfaces, and cortical repair.
Roi Cohen Kadosh is an Israeli-British cognitive neuroscientist notable for his work on numerical and mathematical cognition and learning and cognitive enhancement. He is a professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and the head of the School of Psychology at the University of Surrey.
Social cognitive neuroscience is the scientific study of the biological processes underpinning social cognition. Specifically, it uses the tools of neuroscience to study "the mental mechanisms that create, frame, regulate, and respond to our experience of the social world". Social cognitive neuroscience uses the epistemological foundations of cognitive neuroscience, and is closely related to social neuroscience. Social cognitive neuroscience employs human neuroimaging, typically using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Human brain stimulation techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct-current stimulation are also used. In nonhuman animals, direct electrophysiological recordings and electrical stimulation of single cells and neuronal populations are utilized for investigating lower-level social cognitive processes.
Michael E. Goldberg, also known as Mickey Goldberg, is an American neuroscientist and David Mahoney Professor at Columbia University. He is known for his work on the mechanisms of the mammalian eye in relation to brain activity. He served as president of the Society for Neuroscience from 2009 to 2010.
The V1 Saliency Hypothesis, or V1SH is a theory about V1, the primary visual cortex (V1). It proposes that the V1 in primates creates a saliency map of the visual field to guide visual attention or gaze shifts exogenously.
Olaf Blanke is a Swiss and German physician, neurologist and neuroscientist. He holds the Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Cognitive Neuroprosthetics at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He directs the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Brain Mind Institute of EPFL and is professor of Neurology at Geneva University Hospitals. Blanke is known for his research on the neurological bases of self-consciousness and out-of-body experiences.
Tirin Moore is an American neuroscientist who is a Professor of Neurobiology at Stanford University and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is known for his work on the neural mechanisms of visual perception, visually guided behavior and cognition. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
Angela Charlotte Roberts is a British neurobiologist who is a professor of physiology at the University of Cambridge. Her research considers the neural circuits that underpin cognition and emotion. She leads the Cambridge Marmoset Research Centre. She was awarded the 2020 Goldman-Rakic Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Cognitive Neuroscience.
