What the cognitive neurosciences mean to me

Cognitive Neuroscience is an interdisciplinary area of research that combines measurement of brain activity (mostly by means of neuroimaging) with a simultaneous performance of cognitive tasks by human subjects. These investigations have been successful in the task of connecting the sciences of the brain (Neurosciences) and the sciences of the mind (Cognitive Sciences). Advances on this kind of research provide a map of localization of cognitive functions in the human brain. Do these results help us to understand how mind relates to the brain? In my view, the results obtained by the Cognitive Neurosciences lead to new investigations in the domain of Molecular Neurobiology, aimed at discovering biophysical mechanisms that generate the activity measured by neuroimaging instruments. In this context, I argue that the understanding of how ionic/molecular processes support cognition and consciousness cannot be made by means of the standard reductionist explanations. Knowledge of ionic/molecular meclianisms can contribute to our understanding of the human mind as long as we assume an alternative form of explanation, based on psycho-physical similarities, together with an ontological view of mentality and spirituality as embedded in physical nature (and not outside nature, as frequently assumed in western culture).

Optimizing optimum-path forest classification for huge datasets

Traditional pattern recognition techniques can not handle the classification of large datasets with both efficiency and effectiveness. In this context, the Optimum-Path Forest (OPF) classifier was recently introduced, trying to achieve high recognition rates and low computational cost. Although OPF was much faster than Support Vector Machines for training, it was slightly slower for classification. In this paper, we present the Efficient OPF (EOPF), which is an enhanced and faster version of the traditional OPF, and validate it for the automatic recognition of white matter and gray matter in magnetic resonance images of the human brain. © 2010 IEEE.

Neuropsychiatric symptoms in Alzheimer's disease are related to functional connectivity alterations in the salience network

Neuropsychiatric syndromes are highly prevalent in Alzheimer's disease (AD), but their neurobiology is not completely understood. New methods in functional magnetic resonance imaging, such as intrinsic functional connectivity or resting-state analysis, may help to clarify this issue. Using such approaches, alterations in the default-mode and salience networks (SNs) have been described in Alzheimer's, although their relationship with specific symptoms remains unclear. We therefore carried out resting-state functional connectivity analysis with 20 patients with mild to moderate AD, and correlated their scores on neuropsychiatric inventory syndromes (apathy, hyperactivity, affective syndrome, and psychosis) with maps of connectivity in the default mode network and SN. In addition, we compared network connectivity in these patients with that in 17 healthy elderly control subjects. All analyses were controlled for gray matter density and other potential confounds. Alzheimer's patients showed increased functional connectivity within the SN compared with controls (right anterior cingulate cortex and left medial frontal gyrus), along with reduced functional connectivity in the default-mode network (bilateral precuneus). A correlation between increased connectivity in anterior cingulate cortex and right insula areas of the SN and hyperactivity syndrome (agitation, irritability, aberrant motor behavior, euphoria, and disinhibition) was found. These findings demonstrate an association between specific network changes in AD and particular neuropsychiatric symptom types. This underlines the potential clinical significance of resting state alterations in future diagnosis and therapy. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Reconhecimento de padrões lexicais por meio de redes neurais

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Visão e percepção, investigação dos modelos cognitivos: uma abordagem neurobiológica em design e emoção

Pós-graduação em Design - FAAC

Interpretando a linguagem figurada: um estudo das crônicas de Martha Medeiros

Pós-graduação em Linguística e Língua Portuguesa - FCLAR

Identificação e controle de sistemas dinâmicos utilizando redes wavelets

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Identificação de falhas estruturais usando sensores e atuadores piezelétricos e redes neurais artificiais

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Reconhecimento semi-automático de sinus frontais para identificação humana forense baseado na transformada imagem-floresta e no contexto da forma

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Computação - IBILCE

O Raciocínio lógico-matemático: sua estrutura neurofisiológica e aplicações à educação matemática

Pós-graduação em Educação Matemática - IGCE

Mental rotation of anthropoid hands: a chronometric study

It has been shown that mental rotation of objects and human body parts is processed differently in the human brain. But what about body parts belonging to other primates? Does our brain process this information like any other object or does it instead maximize the structural similarities with our homologous body parts? We tried to answer this question by measuring the manual reaction time (MRT) of human participants discriminating the handedness of drawings representing the hands of four anthropoid primates (orangutan, chimpanzee, gorilla, and human). Twenty-four right-handed volunteers (13 males and 11 females) were instructed to judge the handedness of a hand drawing in palm view by pressing a left/right key. The orientation of hand drawings varied from 0º (fingers upwards) to 90º lateral (fingers pointing away from the midline), 180º (fingers downwards) and 90º medial (finger towards the midline). The results showed an effect of rotation angle (F(3, 69) = 19.57, P < 0.001), but not of hand identity, on MRTs. Moreover, for all hand drawings, a medial rotation elicited shorter MRTs than a lateral rotation (960 and 1169 ms, respectively, P < 0.05). This result has been previously observed for drawings of the human hand and related to biomechanical constraints of movement performance. Our findings indicate that anthropoid hands are essentially equivalent stimuli for handedness recognition. Since the task involves mentally simulating the posture and rotation of the hands, we wondered if "mirror neurons" could be involved in establishing the motor equivalence between the stimuli and the participants' own hands.

Clinical feasibility of cognitive testing in dogs (Canis lupus familiaris)

Several cognitive tests have been developed to evaluate specific aspects of human and animal learning and memory. These tests have been used for early detection of cognitive deficits and to monitor the treatment of dogs with cognitive impairment. Thus, this article evaluated the feasibility of cognitive tests for use in canine neurology clinical routines and the suitability of the different tests to accomplish this aim. Fifteen healthy adult dogs were used for the cognitive tests of reward approach learning, object approach learning, object discrimination learning, reversal learning, delayed non-matched to position, and delayed non-matched to sample to assess different aspects of memory. No difference was observed between tests of delayed non-matched to position (3.13 +/- 2.23 days) and delayed non-matched to sample (3.20 +/- 2.40 days) (P = 0.944). However, dogs had greater difficulty in reversal learning (8.47 +/- 2.61 days) than in object discrimination learning (4.60 +/- 1.64 days) (P <= 0.001). Based on the tests performed, the delayed non-matched to position test may be performed in clinical routine if the owner and the veterinarian have time available, because this test is sensitive to evaluate dogs with cognitive impairments, but requires approximately 10 days of training. Thus, elderly dogs are excellent experimental models to study pathological aging based on their similarities with some human brain diseases, such as Alzheimer disease. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A study of the role of the FOXP2 and CNTNAP2 genes in persistent developmental stuttering

A number of speech disorders including stuttering have been shown to have important genetic contributions, as indicated by high heritability estimates from twin and other studies. We studied the potential contribution to stuttering from variants in the FOXP2 gene, which have previously been associated with developmental verbal dyspraxia, and from variants in the CNTNAP2 gene, which have been associated with specific language impairment (SLI). DNA sequence analysis of these two genes in a group of 602 unrelated cases, all with familial persistent developmental stuttering, revealed no excess of potentially deleterious coding sequence variants in the cases compared to a matched group of 487 well characterized neurologically normal controls. This was compared to the distribution of variants in the GNPTAB, GNPTG, and NAGPA genes which have previously been associated with persistent stuttering. Using an expanded subject data set, we again found that NAGPA showed significantly different mutation frequencies in North Americans of European descent (p = 0.0091) and a significant difference existed in the mutation frequency of GNPTAB in Brazilians (p = 0.00050). No significant differences in mutation frequency in the FOXP2 and CNTNAP2 genes were observed between cases and controls. To examine the pattern of expression of these five genes in the human brain, real time quantitative reverse transcription PCR was performed on RNA purified from 27 different human brain regions. The expression patterns of FOXP2 and CNTNAP2 were generally different from those of GNPTAB, GNPTG and NAPGA in terms of relatively lower expression in the cerebellum. This study provides an improved estimate of the contribution of mutations in GNPTAB, GNPTG and NAGPA to persistent stuttering, and suggests that variants in FOXP2 and CNTNAP2 are not involved in the genesis of familial persistent stuttering. This, together with the different brain expression patterns of GNPTAB, GNPTG, and NAGPA compared to that of FOXP2 and CNTNAP2, suggests that the genetic neuropathological origins of stuttering differ from those of verbal dyspraxia and SLI. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Emoção e afetividade na aprendizagem: breve revisão bibliográfica

This work has as its theme the role of emotions and affectivity in learning, particularly in science learning, being developed from a literature review. We start from the idea that learning occurs through changes in the neural networks of each individual and that these changes are caused by a combination of genetic and biological factors also influenced by emotions and affectivity. We seek information on the functioning of the human brain, highlighting the neuroanatomy and neurocognition, to understand how the brain processes information, including the feelings and emotions experienced by the individual. Once we try to understand which roles are assigned to the feelings and emotions in different learning theories, emphasizing the cognitive and humanistic theories. Finally, we found some more recent contributions to the understanding of the learning process, to the field of neuroscience. We were led to conclude that there is great scope for research in applied neuroscience to education, since the work, especially in the national literature are still scarce

Relações públicas e o Brand Management: storytelling 2.0 na construção de relacionamentos

According to the Informational Society of the twentieth century, man develops society of the spectacle, where life becomes virtual and the individual ceases to be a spectator becoming the protagonist of wikiciberepopéia and organizations seeking to gain the attention and time of its consumers through new communication strategies. If the great epics of mankind brought mythical heroes, divine, with powers (mostly above the mortals), in the era of new technologies, the common man is in the hands the opportunity to become the hero of his own ciberepopéia. Increasingly resistant to traditional advertising, the new model of media consumer, the prosumer, the storytelling is transforming into one of the main communication tools of contemporary organizations. Offer your audience a creative and relevant content across several media platforms is a major brand positioning strategies currently used, in addition to providing the transmission of values and organizational principles in a subjective manner. Storytelling where objects are extensions of the human body (eg, the cell can be treated as an extension of the ears) is a strong indication of a technocratic society, because we can consider the new technologies as extensions of the human brain (as new store technologies, create meanings, share information through a specific language) and the individual who is on the edge of new technology ends up being excluded from certain social events. This new world tends to put an end to separation between seemingly contrary ideas, such as reality/fiction, natural/cultural and the man who emerges from this medium is not the creator, but rather, transforming what already exists. The current human evolution takes place from about half the human mind and tell stories that go beyond the media saturation that really emocionem and who have a real meaning for those who listen, to be interconnected with the socio-environmental reality of this new consumer, is a major chall...