The acquisition of temporal associative tasks such as trace eyeblink conditioning is hippocampus-dependent, while consolidated performance is not. The parahippocampal region mediates much of the input and output of the hippocampus, and perirhinal (PER) and entorhinal (EC) cortices support persistent spiking, a possible mediator of temporal…

An issue of increasing theoretical and translational importance is to understand the conditions under which learned fear can be suppressed, or even eliminated. Basic research has pointed to extinction, in which an organism is exposed to a fearful stimulus (such as a context) in the absence of an expected aversive outcome (such as a shock). This…

The apolipoprotein E4 ("APOE-[epsilon]4") allele is the strongest genetic risk factor for developing late-onset Alzheimer's disease, and may predispose individuals to Alzheimer's-related cognitive decline by affecting normal brain function early in life. To investigate the impact of human APOE alleles on cognitive performance in mice, we trained…

We report the results of a human fMRI experiment investigating the influence of context upon value judgement. Trials were separated into high and low value blocks such that it is possible to investigate the effect of a change in surrounding trials upon the encoding of financial value. The ventral striatum was dependent upon "local context", with…

The purpose of this study was to design a one-hour brain dissection protocol for a medical neuroscience course and evaluate the short and long-term effects of its implementation on medical students. First-year medical students (n = 166) participated in a brain dissection activity that included dissection of the basal nuclei and associated deep…

Reactivity to others' emotions not only can result in empathic concern (EC), an important motivator of prosocial behavior, but can also result in personal distress (PD), which may hinder prosocial behavior. Examining neural substrates of emotional reactivity may elucidate how EC and PD differentially influence prosocial behavior. Participants…

Background: Whereas research has indicated that children with Down syndrome (DS) imitate demonstrated actions over short delays, it is presently unknown whether children with DS recall information over lengthy delays at levels comparable with typically developing (TD) children matched on developmental age. Method: In the present research, 10…

Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), including concussions, can result in a constellation of physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral symptoms that affect students' well-being and performance at school. Despite these effects, school personnel remain underprepared identify, educate, and assist this population of students. This article describes a…

This paper presents an overview of 10 years of research with the "Betty's Brain" computer-based learning environment. We discuss the theoretical basis for "Betty's Brain" and the learning-by-teaching paradigm. We also highlight our key research findings, and discuss how these findings have shaped subsequent research. Throughout…

The efforts made by most countries to accelerate economic development have included a significant investment in education. It has been argued that investment in education, particularly higher education, was itself a potential factor in economic development. Education has become a relatively easy means of improving access to the labour market.…

Hippocampal-dependent episodic memory and stimulus discrimination abilities are both compromised in the elderly. The reduced capacity to discriminate between similar stimuli likely contributes to multiple aspects of age-related cognitive impairment; however, the association of these behaviors within individuals has never been examined in an animal…

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit social-communicative impairments. Less is known about the neuropsychological profile of ASD, although cognitive and neuropsychological deficits are evident. We modelled neuropsychological function in 20 children with ASD and 20 sex, age and IQ matched typically-developing controls (ages 7-14) as…

I will propose a tentative framework of how words in two languages could be organized in the cerebral cortex based on neural assembly theory, according to which neurons that fire synchronously are bound into large-scale distributed functional units (assemblies), which represent a mental event as a whole ("gestalt"). For language this…

As clinical reasoning is a fundamental competence of physicians for good clinical practices, medical academics have endeavored to teach reasoning skills to undergraduate students. However, our current understanding of student-level clinical reasoning is limited, mainly because of the lack of evaluation tools for this internal cognitive process.…

Sleep spindles act as a powerful marker of individual differences in cognitive ability. Sleep spindle parameters correlate with both age-related changes in cognitive abilities and with the age-independent concept of IQ. While some studies have specifically demonstrated the relationship between sleep spindles and intelligence in young children, our…