Objective: To study the effects of green tea extract administration on age-related cognition in young and old male Wistar rats. Methods: Young and old rats were orally administered 0.5% green tea extract for a period of eight weeks and were evaluated by passive avoidance, elevated maze plus paradigm and changes in acetylcholinesterase activity.…

Brain science already has much to contribute to education and will become even more important in the future. Brain research is not going away; it is increasing and will continue to do so. As such, educators need better tools to deal with it. In this article, the author argues that educators desperately need new understandings, new ways to think…

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are a family of extracellularly acting proteolytic enzymes with well-recognized roles in plasticity and remodeling of synaptic circuits during brain development and following brain injury. However, it is now becoming increasingly apparent that MMPs also function in normal, nonpathological synaptic plasticity of the…

Teach well. Be happy. In this book, Heather Wolpert-Gawron, author of the popular education blog "Tweenteacher" shares ideas for teaching an age group that too often presents a challenge for educators. With sparkling humor and a unique, fundamental understanding of the middle children of education, the award-winning teacher offers tried-and-true…

In "Vocabulary at the Center," Amy Benjamin and John T. Crow identify the most effective methods for extending the use of new words--in every grade level and across all subjects. This book shows teachers how to use context-driven exercises to incorporate new words into other areas of study. This book contains information about the authors, an…

Discoveries, reached through scientific and technological advances in the evidence-based empirical domain, about how the body physiologically responds to music have opened new possibilities for developing therapeutic archetypes to actively channel specific aspects of music to assist in the learning processes of children with special needs. The…

Different functions have been suggested for the hippocampus and its subdivisions along both transversal and longitudinal axes. Expression of immediate-early genes (IEGs) has been used to map specific functions onto neuronal activity in different areas of the brain including the hippocampus (IEG imaging). Here we review IEG studies on hippocampal…

People with disabilities constitute a collective that requires continuous and customized attention, since their conditions or abilities are affected with respect to specific standards. People with "Acquired Brain Injury" (ABI), or those who have suffered brain injury at some stage after birth, belong to this collective. The treatment these people…

Individuals with anxiety disorders often do not respond to safety signals and hence continue to be afraid and anxious. Consequently, it is important to develop paradigms in animals that can directly study brain systems involved in learning about, and responding to, safety signals. We previously developed a discrimination procedure in rats of the…

We present a neurocomputational model with self-organizing maps that accounts for the emergence of taxonomic responding and fast mapping in early word learning, as well as a rapid increase in the rate of acquisition of words observed in late infancy. The quality and efficiency of generalization of word-object associations is directly related to…

The theme of Usable Knowledge in Mind, Brain, and Education will be a special section that will appear regularly in the journal. The section will focus on the synergistic connections between biology, cognitive science, and human development on the one hand and educational thought, policy, and practice on the other. Efforts to create usable…

Learning principles based on brain research include the following: the brain is a parallel processor; learning engages the entire physiology; the search for meaning is innate; emotions are critical to patterning; the brain perceives parts and wholes simultaneously; learning involves focused attention and peripheral perception; and learning is…

Infusions of CREB antisense into the amygdala prior to training impair memory for aversive tasks, suggesting that the antisense may interfere with CRE-mediated gene transcription and protein synthesis important for the formation of new memories within the amygdala. However, the amygdala also appears to modulate memory formation in distributed…

In previous work we reported robust collaborative learning for referential labels in patients with hippocampal amnesia, resulting in increasingly rapid and economical communication or "common ground" with their partners [Duff, M. C., Hengst, J., Tranel, D., & Cohen, N. J. (2006). "Development of shared information in communication despite…

Learning strategy selection was assessed in two different inbred strains of mice, C57BL/6 and DBA/2, which are used for developing genetically modified mouse models. Male mice received a training protocol in a water maze using alternating blocks of visible and hidden platform trials, during which mice escaped to a single location. After training,…