What is Neurobiology, Learning and Cognition?
Weighing in at less than 1.3 kilograms and containing close to 1,000 trillion neural connections, the most complex and dynamic system in the known universe – the human brain – is a puzzle wrapped in an enigma folded into a mystery of grey matter.
What exactly is it that transpires in this labyrinthine organic structure as it goes about its business? How do billions of individual neurons produce consciousness and an awareness of what we deem to be reality? How do we learn what we know? Indeed, what is responsible for this thing we call “knowing?”
With new developments in established methods, as well as the advent of sophisticated brain imaging tools that did not exist a decade ago, our conceptions of the underlying mechanisms of the mind are evolving at an astonishing pace. A greater understanding of these mechanisms might someday lead to breakthroughs so profound that the mysteries that baffle us today will be long forgotten…
…and no doubt replaced by new ones.
More information on Neurobiology, Learning and Cognition:
Asleep, but not at rest
Perhaps one of the most enigmatic aspects of our biology, sleep almost seems to defeat us in an evolutionary sense. Down for an average of eight hours out of every 24, we are unconscious and vulnerable. Yet without those precious hours of slumber we begin to rapidly fray along the edges. Starved of enough sleep, we become fatally ill.
Most people would agree that, by definition, sleep is a state of mental inactivity. As it turns out, most people would be wrong. In fact, while one part of our brain’s machinery is slipping into neutral, recent neuroscience indicates that another part is gearing up to the task of making long-term memories out of the traces of our daily experiences.
One of the day’s five lecturers will focus on the activities of the brain during sleep:
- Mircea Stériade, a professor, with the Department of Anatomy and Physiology of the Faculty of Medicine at Laval University, in Quebec City, will speak on “Sleep and the Consolidation of Memory Traces.”
“Soon The Human Brain Will Control Robots - Just By Thinking"
Popular Science | Jan 2004
The Mind-Machine Merger
Fuelled by a host of recent advances in neuroscience, biology and engineering, the promise of brain-machine interfaces – devices that link the biological circuits of a brain to the silicon circuits of a computer – has bounded out of the confines of our imaginations and sci-fi fantasies into the real world of “now.”
Currently championed by monkeys who are bringing robotic arms to life through pure “will,” plans have already been announced to implant electrodes into the brains of paralysed human patients. From the development of brain-controlled prosthetic limbs for people with spinal damage, to the creation of thought-controlled robots for deployment on the battlefield, this triumph of mind over matter could change not only how we think about the mind, but also how the mind itself thinks.
One of the day's five lecturers will focus on brain-machine interface applications in neuroscience:
- Miguel Nicolelis, an associate professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, will speak on "Computing with Neural Ensembles."
Pioneering the pathways of memory
Credited with the legendary feat of merging the fields of neurobiology and psychology, Brenda Milner unquestionably laid the foundations of cognitive neuroscience. In addition to being known around the world for her pioneering exploration of the anatomical basis of memory, her body of research was among the first to convincingly demonstrate that damage to our brains can lead to impressive reorganization of function.
Milner continues to push the boundaries and inform her field using sophisticated brain imaging technologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET). The recent recipient of the prestigious Award in Neurosciences from the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.A.), her present research in hemispheric specialization promise to broaden our understanding of emotion, language, learning and cognition.
As one of the day’s five lecturers, Milner will focus on the implications of normal motor skills learning in the presence of temporal lobe damage:
- Brenda Milner, a professor, with the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University in Montreal, will speak on ”Memory and the Temporal Lobes.”
“Language is a distinct piece of the biological makeup of our brains"
Steven Pinker
The Human Brain-Bias for Learning Language
While the process of how we learn to talk remains one of the most mysterious and exciting phenomena of early human development, present research is striving to enlighten our views about language acquisition and its biological underpinnings in the human brain.
What kinds of speech-processing abilities (biases) are we born with? How do these initial abilities interact and change in different environments?
Using sophisticated behavioural and neuro-imaging techniques, researchers have begun to peel back the mysterious structures and mechanisms that surround speech evolution. It is now understood for example, that language acquisition begins many months before birth, and that at birth infants prefer listening to the language(s) they heard in the womb.
One of the day's five lecturers will address these questions concerning the learning and cognition involved in language acquisition:
- Janet Werker, a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, will speak on "How Listening in Infancy Sets the Stage for Language Acquisition."
A Stem Cell Unscathed
The stem cell is a poster child for controversy: capable of regenerating tissue and potentially even curing some of our most formidable diseases, the vast majority of stem cells used in research have come from discarded embryos. While other methods for collecting the cells exist, until recently none have resulted in a stem cell with the same resilience or vigour as those taken from embryos.
Amidst the controversy swirling around stem cell research, there has been a breakthrough in the ongoing effort to identify an accessible and non-controversial source of stem cells. Isolated from the dermis of rodent and human skin, these stem cells can produce a variety of different cell types, including the type of neural cells that will likely be needed one day to help the traumatized and diseased nervous systems of people recovering from Parkinson’s disease or spinal cord injury.
One of the day's five lecturers will focus on the potential of accessible stem cells in therapeutic neuroscience:
- Freda Miller, a professor of molecular and medical genetics at the University of Toronto and a senior scientist in developmental biology at the Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute in Toronto, will speak on "The Search for Accessible Stem Cells for the Nervous System."
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