Cognitive neurology
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Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain that are involved in mental processes. It addresses the questions of how cognitive activities are affected or controlled by neural circuits in the brain. Cognitive neuroscience is a branch of both neuroscience and psychology, overlapping with disciplines such as behavioral neuroscience, cognitive psychology, physiological psychology, and affective neuroscience. Cognitive neuroscience relies upon theories in cognitive science coupled with evidence from neurobiology, and computational modeling.
Parts of the brain play an important role in this field. Neurons play the most vital role, since the main point is to establish an understanding of cognition from a neural perspective, along with the different lobes of the cerebral cortex.
Methods employed in cognitive neuroscience include experimental procedures from psychophysics and cognitive psychology, functional neuroimaging, electrophysiology, cognitive genomics, and behavioral genetics.
Studies of patients with cognitive deficits due to brain lesions constitute an important aspect of cognitive neuroscience. The damage in lesioned brains provide a comparable starting point with regard to healthy and fully functioning brains. These damages change the neural circuits in the brain and cause it to malfunction during basic cognitive processes, such as memory or learning. These disabilities and such damage can be compared with how the healthy neural circuits are functioning, and possibly draw conclusions about the basis of the affected cognitive processes. Some examples involve damage to Wernicke's area, the left side of the temporal lobe, and Broca's area close to the frontal lobe.
Also, cognitive abilities based on brain development are studied and examined under the subfield of developmental cognitive neuroscience. This shows brain development over time, analyzing differences and proposing possible reasons for those differences.
Theoretical approaches include computational neuroscience and cognitive psychology.
How this connects to Neurology
Nervous-system function depends on localized pathways and distributed networks. The timing, distribution and combination of sensory, motor, cognitive or autonomic findings inform localization, while structural imaging, electrophysiology and the clinical examination provide different forms of evidence.
Text credit: Wikipedia contributors, “Cognitive neuroscience”, original article · authors & revision history · CC BY-SA 4.0. Unmodified opening extract, accessed 24 September 2026. This Wikipedia-derived section is provided under CC BY-SA 4.0; the independent MedAtlas notes and design are separate works.
Cognitive neurology · visual study map
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What the underlying subject studies
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How mechanisms and evidence connect
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