Previous studies have found that individuals with autism spectrum disorders show impairments in mentalizing processes and aberrant brain activity compared with typically developing participants. However, the findings are mainly from male participants and the aberrant effects in autism spectrum disorder females and sex differences are still…

The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to explore how administrator and teacher perceptions affect their application of brain-based learning (BBL) professional development (PD) in schools, specifically an Atlanta suburb middle school. The research was framed around social cognitive theory (SCT), the premise that a person's…

The present study meta-analyzed 45 experiments with 959 subjects and 463 activation foci reported in 43 published articles that investigated the neural mechanism of moral functions by comparing neural activity between the moral task conditions and non-moral task conditions with the Activation Likelihood Estimation method. The present study…

The serine protease inhibitor neuroserpin regulates the activity of tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) in the nervous system. Neuroserpin expression is particularly prominent at late stages of neuronal development in most regions of the central nervous system (CNS), whereas it is restricted to regions related to learning and memory in the…

Mobile electronic devices such as smartphones are playing an increasingly pervasive role in our daily activities. A growing body of literature is beginning to investigate how mobile technology habits might relate to individual differences in cognitive traits. The present study is an investigation into how individual differences in intertemporal…

Latinos/as experience underachievement and underrepresentation in science. Mindset beliefs contribute to positive academic outcomes among students generally, but are understudied among Latinos/as in science. In this quasi-experimental study, Latino/a students expressed initial mindset-related beliefs shown to be less generative of success in…

Numerous investigations have definitively shown amygdalar involvement in delay and contextual fear conditioning. However, much less is known about amygdala contributions to trace fear conditioning, and what little evidence exists is conflicting as noted in previous studies. This discrepancy may result from selective targeting of individual nuclei…

This short note takes two quotations from Snooks' recent editorial on neuroeducation and teases out some further details on the philosophy of neuroscience and neurophilosophy along with consideration of the implications of both for philosophy of education.

Sensory experience can selectively alter excitatory synaptic strength at neocortical synapses. The rapid increase in synaptic strength induced by selective whisker stimulation (single-row experience/SRE, where all but one row of whiskers has been removed from the mouse face) is due, at least in part, to the trafficking of AMPA receptors (AMPARs)…

Recognition memory deficits, even after short delays, are sometimes observed following hippocampal damage. One hypothesis links the hippocampus with processes in updating contextual memory representation. Here, we used fornix transection, which partially disconnects the hippocampal system, and compares the performance of fornix-transected monkeys…

Norepinephrine (NE) is a key modulator of synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus, a brain structure crucially involved in memory formation. NE boosts synaptic plasticity mostly through initiation of signaling cascades downstream from beta (ß)-adrenergic receptors (ß-ARs). Previous studies demonstrated that a ß-adrenergic receptor agonist,…

Previous studies have shown that zinc deficiency leads to apoptosis of neuronal precursor cells in vivo and in vitro. In addition to the role of p53 as a nuclear transcription factor in zinc deficient cultured human neuronal precursors (NT-2), we have now identified the translocation of phosphorylated p53 to the mitochondria and p53-dependent…

Children living in low-resource settings are at risk for failing to reach their developmental potential. While the behavioral outcomes of growing up in such settings are well-known, the neural mechanisms underpinning poor outcomes have not been well elucidated, particularly in the context of low- and middle-income countries. In this study, we…

The first 1,000 days of life are a critical window of vulnerability to exposure to socioeconomic and health challenges (i.e. poverty/undernutrition). The Brain Imaging for Global Health (BRIGHT) project has been established to deliver longitudinal measures of brain development from 0 to 24 months in UK and Gambian infants and to assess the impact…

Neuroscience offers insight into how we learn. Understanding how to leverage neural development pathways is of interest in teaching because the circuits in the brain respond to effective pedagogical practice; therefore, the role of the teacher is critical. Neuroscientific studies (Damasio in The feeling of what happens: body, emotion and the…