Teacher-related factors significantly impact students' higher-order thinking. However, the mechanisms of how these factors specifically affect students' higher-order thinking in urban science classrooms are unclear, especially in the absence of empirical research based on multimodal assessment methodologies. This study explored the pathways of…

Childhood trauma as a consequence of complex social challenges is prevalent in South Africa. The pastoral role of the early childhood development (ECD) teacher includes the support of parents with children who have suffered trauma, to promote the well-being of both the child and the parent. Underpinned by the framework of Maslow's hierarchy of…

The relations between the developing mind and developing brain are explored. We outline a theory of intellectual development postulating that the mind comprises four systems of processes (domain-specific, attention and working memory, reasoning, and cognizance) developing in four cycles (episodic, realistic, rule-based, and principle-based…

How does STEM knowledge learned in school change students' brains? Using fMRI, we presented photographs of real-world structures to engineering students with classroom-based knowledge and hands-on lab experience, examining how their brain activity differentiated them from their "novice" peers not pursuing engineering degrees. A…

Despite much research, the role of the medial temporal lobes (MTL) in category learning is unclear. Two unstructured categorization experiments explored conditions that might recruit MTL category learning and memory systems--namely, whether the stimulus display includes one or two stimuli, and whether category membership depends on configural…

Recent years have seen an expansion in the research related to structural brain adaptations related to the acquisition and processing of additional languages. However, the accumulating evidence remains to a great extent inconsistent, with a large variety of cortical, subcortical, and cerebellar effects reported in various studies. Here we propose…

Students' behavioral outcomes are often used by both researchers and teachers to evaluate the effectiveness of pedagogical interventions. Extensive research using behavioral metrics has found that some interventions are more effective than others in certain contexts. However, there has been less focus on how different interventions impact the…

Purpose: Adductor spasmodic dysphonia (ADSD), the most common form of spasmodic dysphonia, is a debilitating voice disorder characterized by hyperactivity and muscle spasms in the vocal folds during speech. Prior neuroimaging studies have noted excessive brain activity during speech in participants with ADSD compared to controls. Speech involves…

Our bodies are made up of over 250 specific cell types, and all initially arise from stem cells during embryonic development. Stem cells have two characteristics that make them unique: (1) they are pluripotent, meaning that they can differentiate into all cell types of the body, and (2) they are capable of self-renewal to generate more of…

Signaled active avoidance (SAA) behavior requires the suppression of defensive reactions, such as freezing, that conflict with the avoidance response. The neural mechanisms of this inhibitory process are not well understood. Here, we demonstrate that ventromedial prefrontal cortex projections to the nucleus reuniens of the thalamus are recruited…

Mathematical cognition requires coordinated activity across multiple brain regions, leading to the emergence of resting-state functional connectivity as a method for studying the neural basis of differences in mathematical achievement. Hyper-connectivity of the intraparietal sulcus (IPS), a key locus of mathematical and numerical processing, has…

Functional connectivity within and between Intrinsic Connectivity Networks (ICNs) transforms over development and is thought to support high order cognitive functions. But how variable is this process, and does it diverge with altered cognitive development? We investigated age-related changes in integration and segregation within and between ICNs…

Background: Right hemisphere brain damage (RHD) can cause challenges with information gathering. Cognitive processes aid in implicit and explicit information gathering, yet the relationship between these processes and question-asking, the most explicit avenue of information gathering, has not been explored. The purpose of this exploratory…

Purpose: Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) has been widely used for 30 years, but its efficacy and the component contributions from counseling and sound therapy remain controversial. The purpose of this secondary analysis from the Tinnitus Retraining Therapy Trial (TRTT) was to compare treatment response dynamics for TRT (counseling and…

Young children need to be taught using effective interventions. A good teaching method is one that will increase children's motivation to learn, keep them aware of their understanding and encourage them to reflect on what they learn, if this teaching is based on relevant and visible training. Otherwise, they may suffer from delays in mathematics.…