Bridging Neuroscience Research Articles

Setting the Legal Age for Access to Cannabis in Canada: Bridging Neuroscience, Policy, and Prevention

Setting the Legal Age for Access to Cannabis in Canada: Bridging Neuroscience, Policy, and Prevention

Current Emotion Research in Social Neuroscience: How does emotion influence social cognition?

Neuroscience investigations of emotional influences on social cognition have been dominated by the somatic marker hypothesis and dual-process theories. Taken together, these lines of inquiry have not provided strong evidence that emotional influences on social cognition rely on neural systems which code for bodily signals of arousal nor distinguish emotional reasoning from other modes of reasoning. Recent findings raise the possibility that emotionally influenced social cognition relies on two stages of neural changes: once when emotion is elicited and a different set of changes at the time of social cognitive judgment. These findings suggest that affect infusion models may be a fruitful framework for bridging neuroscience and psychological understanding of the role of emotion in social cognition.

Conceptions and misconceptions about neuroscience in preschool teachers: a study from Argentina

Background: Teachers’ conceptions and misconceptions about neuroscience are crucial in establishing a proper dialogue between neuroscience and education. In recent years, studies in different countries have examined primary and secondary school teachers’ conceptions. However, although preschool education has proved its importance to later academic outcomes, there is limited investigation of neuroscience conceptions focused exclusively on preschool teachers.Purpose: The present study sought to explore preschool teachers’ conceptions and misconceptions about neuroscience in an Argentine setting.Sample, design and methods: We used quantitative and qualitative approaches to explore concepts about neuroscience, including specific neuromyths. Data were collected using a 24-statement questionnaire and 5 in-depth interviews. The survey was administered to 204 teachers of children between the ages of 0–5-years in Argentina.Results and conclusions: Results from this exploratory study suggested a relatively high level of general knowledge of neuroscience amongst the preschool teachers in the study. However, three particular issues seemed unclear for teachers: memory, plasticity and the myth that ‘we only use 10% of the brain’. Specifically, ‘memory’ was understood as ‘learning by heart’; neural underpinnings of memory and plasticity processes were unknown; and the myth that we only use 10% of the brain was used to explain individual differences in intelligence in a straightforward way. In addition, anecdotal evidence was used by teachers to justify their conceptions about neuroscience. Finally, the wider implications of these results for bridging neuroscience and education are discussed.

Attending to and neglecting people: bridging neuroscience, psychology and sociology.

Human behaviour is context-dependent-based on predictions and influenced by the environment and other people. We live in a dynamic world where both the social stimuli and their context are constantly changing. Similar dynamic, natural stimuli should, in the future, be increasingly used to study social brain functions, with parallel development of appropriate signal-analysis methods. Understanding dynamic neural processes also requires accurate time-sensitive characterization of the behaviour. To go beyond the traditional stimulus-response approaches, brain activity should be recorded simultaneously from two interacting subjects to reveal why human social interaction is critically different from just reacting to each other. This theme issue on Attending to and neglecting people contains original work and review papers on person perception and social interaction. The articles cover research from neuroscience, psychology, robotics, animal interaction research and microsociology. Some of the papers are co-authored by scientists who presented their own, independent views in the recent Attention and Performance XXVI conference but were brave enough to join forces with a colleague having a different background and views. In the future, information needs to converge across disciplines to provide us a more holistic view of human behaviour, its interactive nature, as well as the temporal dynamics of our social world.

On the Teneurin track: a new synaptic organization molecule emerges.

To achieve proper synaptic development and function, coordinated signals must pass between the pre- and postsynaptic membranes. Such transsynaptic signals can be comprised of receptors and secreted ligands, membrane associated receptors, and also pairs of synaptic cell adhesion molecules. A critical open question bridging neuroscience, developmental biology, and cell biology involves identifying those signals and elucidating how they function. Recent work in Drosophila and vertebrate systems has implicated a family of proteins, the Teneurins, as a new transsynaptic signal in both the peripheral and central nervous systems. The Teneurins have established roles in neuronal wiring, but studies now show their involvement in regulating synaptic connections between neurons and bridging the synaptic membrane and the cytoskeleton. This review will examine the Teneurins as synaptic cell adhesion molecules, explore how they regulate synaptic organization, and consider how some consequences of human Teneurin mutations may have synaptopathic origins.

Decomposing dendrophilia: Comment on “Toward a computational framework for cognitive biology: Unifying approaches from cognitive neuroscience and comparative cognition” by W. Tecumseh Fitch

The future of cognitive science will be about bridging neuroscience and behavioral studies, with essential roles played by comparative biology, formal modeling, and the theory of computation. Nowhere will this integration be more strongly needed than in understanding the biological basis of language and music. We thus strongly sympa-thize with the general framework that Fitch [1] proposes, and welcome the remarkably broad and readable review he presents to support it.

Neurobiological Processes of Risk and Resilience in Adolescence: Implications for Policy and Prevention Science

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the concepts of risk and resilience and their potential to inform clinical interventions, school‐based prevention programs, and social policies. Research suggests that childhood adversity can trigger a cascade of psychological and neurobiological events that can lead to mental disorders in later life. Yet little is known about how these processes manifest in adolescence, a developmental window that is typically associated with an elevated risk for psychopathology and represents a period of neurological growth and reorganization that is second only to early childhood. A better understanding of adolescent brain development may provide an empirical grounding to improve the focus and timing of interventions, particularly those that target self‐regulation, meta‐cognition, and social supports. Finally, opportunities and challenges that emerge when bridging neuroscience and prevention science are discussed.

Fin‐de‐Siècle Advances in Neuroeducation: Henry Herbert Donaldson and Reuben Post Halleck

ABSTRACTABSTRACT—This article focuses on two early attempts at bridging neuroscience and education, made by Henry Herbert Donaldson (1857–1938), a neurologist, and Reuben Post Halleck (1859–1936), an educator. Their works, respectively entitled The Growth of the Brain: A Study of the Nervous System in Relation to Education (1895) and The Education of the Central Nervous System: A Study of Foundations, Especially of Sensory and Motor Training (1896), witness early attempts at opening up paths for the application of neurobiological findings to education. We provide an exposé of select points from their monographs; published only 1 year apart, both texts constitute significant testimonies of that Zeitgeist. They shed light on contemporary discussions about gender, neuroplasticity, critical periods, nature and nurture, and sleep/awake rhythms and provide a much needed perspective on the difficulties of founding the new inter‐ and transdisciplinary field of neuroeducation.

First Award for Transforming Education Through Neuroscience: Mary Helen Immordino‐Yang

Volume 2—Number 2 © 2008 the Authors Journal Compilation © 2008 International Mind, Brain, and Education Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. iii We are happy to announce that Dr. Mary Helen ImmordinoYang was recently honored with the fi rst award for “ Transforming Education Through Neuroscience, ” established to honor an early career individual who represents excellence in bridging neuroscience and education. Cosponsored by the International Mind, Brain, and Education Society (IMBES) and the Learning and the Brain Conference, the award was presented to Dr. Immordino-Yang at the 19th meeting of the Conference in San Francisco on February 9, 2008. IMBES was founded to facilitate cross-cultural collaboration in all fi elds that are relevant to connecting mind, brain, and education in research, theory, and practice, bridging the gap between research and practice in a reciprocal and constructive manner. The breadth of this new fi eld requires a level of integration and multidisciplinarity that is diffi cult to achieve. This year, IMBES is happy to recognize an early career scientist of rare talent and ability, who is building exactly this kind of multidisciplinary collaboration and connection. Dr. Immordino-Yang has been a seventh-grade teacher and is one of the fi rst to earn a doctorate from Harvard ’ s Mind, Brain, & Education program. She is presently a joint postdoctoral research fellow at the Brain and Creativity Institute and the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, where she works with Antonio and Hanna Damasio. She is a sought-after speaker to teachers and scientists alike and an innovative researcher. “ Mary Helen represents the next generation of educator, someone who is as facile talking about neuroscience as she is about education, ” said Charles Nelson III, Harvard University and Children ’ s Hospital in Boston. Dr. Immordino-Yang ’ s unique combination of experience, training, and contributions to the fi eld of mind, brain, and education converges in her groundbreaking research and ability to move with facility between the laboratory and the classroom. “ What ’ s so impressive about Mary Helen, ” adds Jay Giedd, Chief of Brain Imaging at the Child Psychiatry branch of the National Institute of Mental Health, “ is that she brings so much credibility and a pragmatic tone — not like how scientists often talk about what we know and then walk away, leaving it up to someone else to make it happen. ” We are happy to share some of Dr. Immordino-Yang ’ s contributions to the fi eld of mind, brain, and education in the “ Dialogue ” section of the current issue. On behalf of IMBES, we offer our sincerest congratulations to Dr. Immordino-Yang, the worthy recipient of our fi rst award for “ Transforming Education Through Neuroscience. ”

Social Psychology and Neuroscience: Strange Bedfellows or a Healthy Marriage?

In this paper, we assess what neuroscience theory and method have contributed to the study of group processes and intergroup relations and what we see as potential future contributions to the discipline. We briefly review the historical relation between neuroscience and social psychology, identify issues that may limit the value of neuroscience to the study of group processes and relations, and then argue that social neuroscience indeed holds significant promise for understanding many key elements of group processes and intergroup relations. Both the potential problems and the potential benefits of bridging neuroscience and social psychology are considered in terms of theoretical considerations, empirical issues, and practical implications. We conclude that, although not all group phenomena may be reducible to neural activity and pathways, there are significant benefits to social psychology by having an even broader multidisciplinary orientation within social psychology, one that incorporates the complementary perspectives, techniques, and knowledge of neuroscience.