How is neuroscience helpful?
Neuroscience has been useful to penetrate the mystery of the relationship between the mind, behavior, and the activity of the nervous tissue.
That is to say, that, from the study at different levels: molecular, neural, neural networks, behavioral and cognitive, neuroscience tries to unravel how the activity of the brain is related to the psyche and behaviors.
Understanding brain physiology is essential to understand our behaviors and teaching-learning processes.
Neuroscience has helped explain the processes that underpin learning for understanding the functioning of the brain and nervous system.
In this brief guide, we’re going to answer the question “How is neuroscience helpful?” What is neuroscience, what problems does neuroscience solve, what are the 4 fundamental branches of neuroscience and why is neuroscience so important.
How is neuroscience helpful?
Neurosciences can make important contributions to knowledge to facilitate the understanding of key cognitive processes for teaching-learning, such as memory, attention, language, literacy, executive functions, decision-making, creativity, and emotion, among others.
Modern neurosciences are also important for understanding risky learning situations (eg, dyslexia and dyscalculia) and thus offer a benefit to many children.
Neuroscience helps to understand the functioning of our brain and establishes relationships between physiological and biochemical aspects, and human behavior.
Thus, from an organic and physiological point of view, this discipline provides information about the behavior and actions of man.
Also, neuroscience allows understanding the origin of many diseases associated with behavior, which generates great advances in the management of psychological and biological problems.
The methodology used in the field of human cognitive neurosciences and experimental psychology also offers the possibility of empirically testing strategies and interventions that can be implemented in the area of education, such as, for example, the monitoring and comparison of different teaching and learning modalities.
However, although the potential of neuroscience as a tool to improve education can be emphasized, the transition from the laboratory to the classroom isn’t easy.
Being multidisciplinary, neuroscience provides important knowledge related to the processes of our body. Some of the topics that neuroscience investigates are detailed below.
- Neurotransmitters and their participation in the formation of behavior.
- Biological mechanisms related to learning.
- Functioning and structure of elements linked to memory and perception.
- Structure and functioning of consciousness.
- Genetic aspects of neuronal development from the moment of conception.
- Neural networks and their scope.
Human life walks in the constant search for answers, and for this, we ask ourselves many questions such as: who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? etc. The human being is curious by nature and through various sciences, we try to explain everything that surrounds us and ultimately ourselves.
All this is possible thanks to our central computer, with some 85,000 million neurons, each one with up to 50,000 synaptic contacts, weighing just a pound and a half.
Thanks to the brain we capture through our senses the world around us, we communicate, think, learn, create, interact, have emotions, etc. Ultimately, we live and feel life both individually and collectively.
Santiago Ramón y Cajal is considered the founding father of neurosciences. Cajal was the first to describe in marvelous detail the different types of neurons or butterflies of the soul as he called them, the neural circuits that interconnect them, and he also postulated the synaptic theory whose final demonstration would come decades later thanks to electron microscopy.
Contemplating his freehand drawings of the mysteries of our brain are still worthy of admiration today for their clarity, detail, and beauty.
For this reason, Cajal obtained the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1906 that he shared with Camilo Golgi, that of the famous staining, which allowed Cajal to glimpse the most intimate secrets of our neural networks.
Neuroscientists are working hard looking for these and many other answers. But they don’t do it alone, they do it by creating consortia, collaborating, with multidisciplinary approaches to the same problem.
We’re moving in the direction of personalized medicine since each of us is unique due to our genetic information and the interaction with the environment in which we live.
Since the publication of the human genome a little more than 10 years ago, advances in technologies associated with “omics” (genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics …) reveal the complexity of life itself and, of course, of our brain and its operation.
Scientific advances can have two faces. On the one hand, they can be used for the good of the human race, but also against it.
The more we advance in neuroscience and the more we know the ins and outs of our brain, we’ll also advance in the knowledge of our fears and weaknesses.
The use of advancements can be used to cure Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, or autism … or to control people, induce fear, implant a chip at birth, dominate the masses, etc.
The dangers increase the closer we get to the holy grail of neuroscience, absolute knowledge. In the end, what is clear is that our curiosity, ability to improve and imagination overcome all fears and for this reason, we won’t stop investigating neuroscience or any other science.
What is neuroscience?
Neuroscience is a branch of science that deals with studying the structure, function, development, chemistry, pharmacology, and pathologies of the nervous system, about behavior and the human mind.
That is, this science links the activity of the brain with the psyche and the behavior of man from the molecular, neuronal, behavioral, and cognitive study,
Since the development of science, the study of the mind had always had a primarily psychological focus and had restricted areas, such as neurology and psychology, based on organic criteria. Currently, neuroscience aims to integrate neurological and psychological aspects to explain certain phenomena whose treatments haven’t yet been developed.
Since the study of the nervous system is such a broad area, neuroscience becomes multidisciplinary by merging in its other diverse branches, such as neuroanatomy, physiology, biochemistry, genetics, neuropsychology, neurology, and neurolinguistics.
Ultimately, neuroscience has the objective of uncovering the biological functioning that underlies emotions and thoughts, analyzing how it influences these emotions and thus investigating its effect on mental processes such as behavior, learning, and memory.
What problems does neuroscience solve?
Neuroscience has become one of the most dynamic and challenging areas of biomedical research.
The human brain continues to be one of the great unknown to modern science.
There is a conviction that understanding the brain and its functioning can represent the most revolutionary advance in human becoming, not only because of the impact that such knowledge would have in fields as diverse as learning, interpersonal relationships, and the prolongation of intellectual life.
The mission of neuroscience is to improve understanding of the brain. Defining the structure and functioning of the nervous system in normal and pathological conditions.
In other words, understanding the functioning of the healthy brain to shed light on the dysfunctions that cause disease. This goal is recognized to be the greatest challenge facing modern neuroscience.
What are the 4 fundamental branches of neuroscience?
The 4 fundamental branches of neuroscience are;
Applied neuroscience
It’s a discipline that uses scientific knowledge about the brain to enhance the health and well-being of people.
Applied neuroscience has a multidisciplinary nature, as it’s based on disciplines such as clinical psychology, cognitive science, neurophysiology, ergonomics, physics, engineering, robotics, artificial intelligence, or bioinformatics. The expansion of applied neuroscience gives rise to new fields, such as neuroeconomics, neuromarketing, and neuroeducation, although the main fields of application include clinical and work.
Cognitive neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience aims to understand the functioning of the mind based on scientific evidence obtained from psychological, neurobiological, and computational experimentation.
In conclusion, modern cognitive neuroscience is characterized by:
- Have a marked multidisciplinary character, understanding that the mind can’t be understood from a single point of view or level of description.
- Conceive the mind as a complex phenomenon that arises from the interrelation between biology, psychology, and society (psychosocial model).
- Understand that the brain is important, but it doesn’t work in isolation but is part of a more complex system (nervous system, body, family, culture, ecosystem, etc.).
Computational neuroscience
It’s an interdisciplinary scientific branch that links the various fields of biophysics, neuroscience, cognitive science, electrical engineering, computer science, and mathematics.
Neurolearning
It’s a discipline that combines psychology, pedagogy, and neuroscience to explain how the brain works in learning processes.
The brain development process is gradual and therefore the learning proposals must go from the simplest and most concrete to the most abstract and complex.
So, is neuroscience important?
Yes, neuroscience is very important. Neuroscience is part of a set of disciplines related to the study of the nervous system. They address from the study at the molecular level, that is, of the physical conformation of this system to what refers to the cognitive and behavioral aspects, things that are reflected in behaviors, attitudes, etc.
Its main objective is to study and understand nothing more and nothing less than the human mind approaching it from a scientific point of view, of course.
Neurons are influenced by the environment in which the individual develops, with people, the activities that are carried out; And this is why neuroscience also includes disciplines such as psychoanalysis, which focuses mainly on studying human behavior.
Also, it’s responsible for discovering how the learning process occurs in the brain and everything that must be done to facilitate it.
Many professionals agree that it’s very important to be clear about the process carried out by this organ because as mentioned above, it’s complex and the most important things for human beings occur within it.
Currently, neurosciences have had a great task because many people suffer from sleep disorders, anxiety, stress thanks to the rhythm of life they lead, and that is when specialists must understand the “why” to treat to give an effective solution to the issue. Through this discipline, everything about a person’s behavior is known.
FAQSs: How is neuroscience helpful?
Why is neuroscience so popular?
Neuroscience is one of the fields that have made the most progress in recent decades. The contributions of Neuroscience have been key to understanding and treating certain genetic and environmental diseases.
Why is it important to learn about the brain?
Understanding the relationship between the brain, the stimuli that human beings receive from the environment, and the accumulated experience that we’ve will allow us to understand not only the way we make daily decisions but also how these processes are altered in those individuals who present some pathology.
Is Neuroscience better than psychology?
No, neuroscience is not better than psychology. Neuroscience provides all kinds of relevant scientific knowledge about how processes studied by psychology are produced, such as memorization, thoughts, emotions, etc. This is why the dialogue between these two sciences is of the utmost importance, both complement each other.
What is the concept of neuroscience?
Neuroscience is the set of scientific disciplines that study the nervous system, to get closer to understanding the mechanisms that regulate the control of nervous reactions and the behavior of the brain.
What type of jobs do neuroscientists do?
- Research centers
- Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industries
- Professor
- Clinical psychologist
- Doctor
- Nurse
- Social worker
In this brief guide, we answered the question “How is neuroscience helpful?’’ What is neuroscience, what problems does neuroscience solve, what are the 4 fundamental branches of neuroscience and why neuroscience it’s so important.
If you have any questions or comments please let us know.
References
Blog – 5 Reasons Why Neuroscience is Amazing. (2018). Retrieved November 3, 2020, from Neurotrackerx.com website: https://www.neurotrackerx.com/post/5-reasons-why-neuroscience-is-amazing
http://www.danbeekim.org. (2017, October 3). Does modern neuroscience really help us understand behavior? Retrieved November 3, 2020, from Massive Science website: https://massivesci.com/articles/neuroscience-behavior-vs-technology/
Neuroscience. (2020). Retrieved November 3, 2020, from Psychology Today website: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/neuroscience
The use of neuroscience in learning | Croner-i. (2014). Retrieved November 3, 2020, from Croneri.co.uk website: https://app.croneri.co.uk/feature-articles/use-neuroscience-learning
