Dr PS Deb MD, DM (Neurology)

What is Cognition?

• Middle English cognicion, from Anglo-French, from Latin cognition-,

cognitio, from cognoscere to become acquainted with, know,

from co- + gnoscere to come to know

• The act or process of knowing; perception.

• the product of such a process; something thus known, perceived,

• Faculty for processing information

• Intellectual or mental process whereby an organism become aware

of or obtain knowledge (MeSH)

• A conscious intellectual act , mental process of knowing

learning, thinking, judging

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What is Cognition?

Part of speech: noun

Definition: understanding

Synonyms: ◦ acknowledgment, apprehension, attention, awareness,  

cognizance,  comprehension, discernment,  insight

intelligence,  knowledge , mind,  need, 

note, notice, observance, observation,  perception,

percipience, reasoning, recognition,  regard

Antonyms: ignorance, unawareness

Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition

 

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Spectrum of Cognition

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Nano

Micro

MacroMeta

Para

Cognitive Science

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Philosophy

Psychology Neuroscience

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Evolution & Cognition

“Cognition is survival instinct a consequence of carefully

crafted modules dedicated to solving specific evolutionary

problems”

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Evolutionary Cognitive Science

Conditioned taste aversion

Garcia discovered that animals learned to avoid novel food products that made them ill in as little as one learning conditioning trial, something that had not been demonstrated with any other stimulus class previously.

Prepared learningSeligman demonstrated a phenomenon in which it is easier to make associations between stimuli that possess a biological predisposition to be conditioned because of a role these stimuli played in an organism’s evolutionary history

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What is the seat of Cognition?

• Trepanning done in South

America over 10,000

years

• To let the bad spirit out

that tormented the brains

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Surgical Papyrus

• Surgical Papyrus the

oldest medical writing

1600 BC the first known

descriptions of cranial

sutures, the external brain

surface, brain liquor (CSF)

and intracranial pulsation

• Head and spine trauma

and their effect

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Alcmaeon of Croton (500 BC)o Brain as the site of sensationo Optic nerve as hollow carried the information to the brain where sensory modalities had its own localizationo human soul was immortal and partook of the divine nature, because like the heavenly bodies it contained in itself a principle of motion

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Brain vs. Heart

Hippocrates 460-377 BC“Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrows, pains, grieves and tears”.

Aristotle 384-322 B.C “the heart as the organ of thinking, of perception and feelings,”“brain could cool the passion of heart”

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Galen 130-200 AD

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Brain as hollow organ : Nemesius (circa 320)

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Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 –1519 )

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Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564 CE)

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Phrenology : Gall-1806 Complex traits such as

combativeness, spirituality, hope, and conscientiousness are controlled by specific areas in the brain, which expand as the traits develop.

This enlargement of local areas of the brain was thought to produce characteristic bumps and ridges on the overlying skull, from which an individual's character could be determined.

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Beginning of Modular theory

Paul Broca 1868

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Brodmann’s area In the early part of the

twentieth century Korbinian Brodmann divided the human cerebral cortex into 52 discrete areas on the basis of distinctive nerve cell structures and characteristic arrangements of cell layers

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Brain Mapping

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Lateralization of brain functions

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Modern Phrenology

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Imaging of brain CT Scan

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MRI Brain

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fMRI

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PET scan

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Descartes: Brain and Mind

(1596-1650)

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Bioelectricity: Galvani 1737-1798

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Discovery of Neuron

Ramony Cajal and Camillo Golgi 1906 Noble Price

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Nerve Cell

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Natural Neural Network

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Study of Cognitive Neural Science

1. Single cell recording of behaving animal

2. Cellular study of brain architecture

3. Cognitive genetics

4. Study of behavior of patient with specific lesion the

brain

5. Imaging of brain of normal and abnormal

6. Computer modeling

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Objectives

To know 1. Organization of Nervous system

2. Nerve signal processing

3. Sensory processing : Physical, chemical, EM

4. Motor control mechanism voluntary and involuntary

5. Consciousness, sleep, emotion reproduction

6. Cognitive function: Language, Memory…

7. Development of NS and Genetics

8. Cognitive Neurophilosophy

9. Recent development

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1. Functional Organization of NS

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1. Structural Organization of NS

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2.Nerve signal processing

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3. Sensory Signal Processing

Laws of specific sense energies – Muller 1826

“Each nerve fiber is activated primarily by a certain type of stimulus and each makes specific connections to structures in the central nervous system whose activity gives rise to specific sensations”

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4. Motor Control

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VoluntaryInvoluntary

5. Consciousness, Sleep, Emotion Reproduction

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6. Higher Cognitive Functions: Language, Memory

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7. Brain Development and Genetics

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8 Cognitive Neurophilosophy

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9. Recent advances

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Selected Reading

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End of Beginning