This document outlines the agenda and content for a seminar on cognitive neuroscience. It introduces cognitive neuroscience as the study of biological substrates underlying cognition, focusing on the neural substrate of mental processes. It discusses the basic unit of the brain (the neuron), cognition, neurocognition, areas of the brain like the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. It also outlines methods used to study cognition like psychophysics, EEG, fMRI, and transcranial magnetic stimulation. The seminar aims to provide an understanding of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by neural circuits in the brain.

1. SEMINAR ON
“COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE”
UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF
Mr. NARENDRA BABU C R
Asst. Prof Dept of CSE, RGIT
SUBMITTED BY
PRASOON GANESH 1RG11CS088
1

3. AGENDA
 INTRODUCTION
 THE BRAIN
 BASIC UNIT of BRAIN
 COGNITION
 NEUROCOGNITION
 HIPPOCAMPUS and FUNCTIONAL TRADEOFFS
 PREFRONTAL CORTEX and BASAL GANGLIA
 DECISION MAKING
 HOW COGNITION IS STUDIED
 CONCLUSION
 REFERENCES

4. INTRODUCTION
 Cognitive neuroscience is an academic field concerned with the
scientific study of biological substrates underlying cognition
with a specific focus on the neural substrate of mental process.
 It addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive
functions are produced by neural circuits in the brain.
 Cognitive neuroscience is a branch of both psycology and
neuroscience, overlapping with disciplines such physiological
psycology, cognitive psycology and neuropsycology.

5. 5
The Brain ...
 The most interesting and the most complex
object in the known universe
 How can we understand the workings of the
brain?
 On what level should we attack this question?
An external description won’t help much.
 How can we understand the workings of a TV
or computer?
 Experiments won’t suffice, we must have an
understanding of the operating principles.
 To verify that we understand how it works, we
must make a model.

6. What is Cognition?
 All mental abilities and processes related to knowledge,
attention, memory, reasoning, computing etc.

7. Why study Cognition?
 can provide insight into areas of cognition
 can help distinguish between different theories relating to how
that process is performed.
 can help guide the design of artificial intelligence systems
intended to mimic human abilities

8. Basic Unit of Brain: Neuron
Figure 1: Basic Unit of Brain

9. Neurons - Structure
 Basic building block of nervous system
 soma - cell body; contact site for other neurons
 dendrites - contact site for other neurons
 axon - conducts action potential away from cell body &
dendrites towards other neurons
 terminal buttons - at end of axon; site of connection to other
neurons
 myelin sheath - electrical insulation (optional)

10. Neuronal functioning
 Action potential - how neurons convey information; an
electrochemical transmission along length of neuron
 Synapse - site of “connection” between adjacent neurons or
between neurons and muscle fibers
 Terminal buttons of presynaptic neuron @ dendrites/soma of
postsynaptic neuron (or muscle fibres)

11. Neurocognition OR
Cognitive Neuroscience
 All cognition is the result of neurological activity
 Most closely linked to cerebral cortex
 The study of the relationships between neuroscience and
cognitive psychology, especially those theories of the mind
dealing with memory, sensation and perception, problem
solving, language processing, motor functions and cognition.

12. The relationship between brain and
cognition
 Cognition is a product of the brain.
 Understanding the brain and its organization is useful for
assessing the plausibility of cognitive theories

13. Hippocampus and Functional Tradeoffs
in Memory
 Explicit Memory
 Complementary Learning Systems
 Functional Tradeoffs

14. Prefrontal Cortex and Basal Ganglia
 Dendtate gyrus
 NDMA
 Functional significance
 Basal Ganglia
 GATE

15. Decision Making
 Threshold
 Speed-accuracy tradeoffs
 Human imaging studies

16. How Cognition is studied?
 Psychophysics
 Electroencephalography(EEG)
 fMRI
 Electrocorticography
 Transcranial magnetic stimulation

17. Psychophysics
 the scientific study of the relation between stimulus and
sensation
 experiments seek to determine whether the subject can detect a
stimulus, identify it, differentiate between it and another
stimulus, or describe the magnitude or nature of this difference

18. Electroencephalography(EEG)
 Electroencephalography (EEG) is the recording of electrical
activity along the scalp.

19. fMRI
 Functional magnetic resonance
imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) is
a functional neuro-imaing procedure
using MRI technology that measures brain
activity by detecting associated changes in
blood flow.

20. Electrocorticogaphy
 It is the practice of using electrodes placed directly on the
exposed surface of the brain to record electrical activity from
the cerebral cortex.
 Invasive

21. Trans-cranial magnetic stimulation
 Trans-cranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a noninvasive
method used to stimulate small regions of the brain.

22.  These examples also highlight some potential routes by
which cognitive theory is most easily elaborated in order to
have an influence on neural data.
 We emphasize that cognitive science makes many valuable
contributions without a demand to constrain or influence
neuroscience.
CONCLUSION

23. REFERENCES
 [1] Alexander, G. E., DeLong, M. R., & Strick, P. L. (1986). Parallel
organizationof functionally segregated circuits linking basal
ganglia and cortex.Annual Review of Neuroscience, 9, 357–381.
 Frank, M. J. (2015). Linking across levels of computation in
model-basedcognitive neuroscience. In B. U. Forstmann & E.
Wagenmakers (Eds.),An introduction to model-based cognitive
neuroscience. New York:Springer (in press).
 [3] Badre, D., & Frank, M. J. (2012). Mechanisms of hierarchical
reinforcementlearning in cortico-striatal circuits 2: Evidence from
fMRI. CerebralCortex, 22(3), 527–536.
 [4] O’Reilly, R. C., & McClelland, J. L. (1994). Hippocampal
conjunctiveencoding, storage, and recall: Avoiding a tradeoff.
Hippocampus, 4,661–682.