What is "cognitive neuroscience"

n. the branch of neuroscience that studies the biological foundations of mental phenomena

Cognitive neuroscience is an academic field concerned with the scientific study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental processes. It addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive activities are affected or controlled by neural circuits in the brain. Cognitive neuroscience is a branch of both psychology and neuroscience, overlapping with disciplines such as physiological psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuropsychology. Cognitive neuroscience relies upon theories in cognitive science coupled with evidence from neuropsychology, and computational modeling.

Parts of the brain play an important role in this field. Neurons play the most vital role, since the main point is to establish an understanding of cognition from a neural perspective, along with the different lobes of the Cerebral cortex.

Due to its multidisciplinary nature, cognitive neuroscientists may have various backgrounds. Other than the associated disciplines just mentioned, cognitive neuroscientists may have backgrounds in neurobiology, bioengineering, psychiatry, neurology, physics, computer science, linguistics, philosophy, and mathematics.

Methods employed in cognitive neuroscience include experimental procedures from psychophysics and cognitive psychology, functional neuroimaging, electrophysiology, cognitive genomics, and behavioral genetics.

Studies of patients with cognitive deficits due to brain lesions constitute an important aspect of cognitive neuroscience. The damages in lesioned brains provide a comparable basis with regards to healthy and fully functioning brains. These damages change the neural circuits in the brain and cause it to malfunction during basic cognitive processes, such as memory or learning. With the damage, we can compare how the healthy neural circuits are functioning, and possibly draw conclusions about the basis of the affected cognitive processes.

Also, cognitive abilities based on brain development are studied and examined under the subfield of developmental cognitive neuroscience. This shows brain development over time, analyzing differences and concocting possible reasons for those differences.

Theoretical approaches include computational neuroscience and cognitive psychology.

Cognitive Neuroscience is a peer-reviewed academic journal published four times a year by the Taylor & Francis Group. It publishes empirical and theoretical articles on all topics in the field of cognitive neuroscience. These include perception, attention, memory, language, action, decision-making, emotion, and social cognition. It is co-Edited by Jamie Ward of the University of Sussex and Sharon Thompson-Schill of the University of Pennsylvania.