Why study Cognitive Neuroscience?

In an ever-changing environment the adjustment of human behaviour is primarily reflected on the100 billions of neural cells of the human brain that are constantly in a dynamic state. Contemporary technology and the continuously growing body of the Neuroscience advancements bring to light sound evidence of the reciprocal relationship between brain and behaviour.

Getting to know better the exciting story of the most perfect, the most morphoplastic and mythoplastic living machinery ever on our planet, the human brain, is worth studying for numerous reasons. Firstly, understanding how the human brain works is rather an ancient and, as expected, a difficult task, yet attractive and unceasingly interesting. There is numerous archaeological evidence and findings revealing that the human brain captivated the attention of ancient people and their realization that the brain is the seat and the center of all the higher cognitive functions. Indeed cognitive neuroscience and psychology are the two sides of the coin that is called behaviour. It provides a totally new perspective and understanding of the human perception, the human emotions, responses, and social interaction. Cognitive neuroscience makes use of technology like functional imagery (fMRI), positron emission tomographies (PET), electrophysiological (EEG) and other techniques that allow for a detailed inquiry into the infinite labyrinths of brain networks that actually make each one of us so unique.

Knowing the cognitive neuroscience dimension opens a whole new world to science in general as it may bring about changes to areas like linguistics, philosophy, medicine and computing/programming. It provides a new scope in the science of psychology per se about the biology that underlies our behaviour, the research and the theories, mental health, clinical applications (differential diagnosis, psychotherapy and neuropsychological interventions), the impact and development of computational neuroscience, the neural networks and even artificial intelligence.  

This very fact allows psychologists who decide to combine cognitive neuroscience in their studies to spread their wings over numerous branches of science, clinical practice, and interdisciplinary professional settings. The area of research and clinical intervention settings are perhaps amongst the first things that one might instantly think profession wise, but what about collaborating with a computer science professional, a chemist, a mathematician, an engineer, neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and neuromarketing professsionals, or work for new technologies or companies, or the federal, highway driving construction projects and municipal, even aeronautics and space administration.

Choosing to combine cognitive neuroscience with psychology allows for the development of strong problem-solving, analytical and critical thinking, data analysis and research skills. Studying cognitive neuroscience can be an exciting experience as it might involve lots of experiments, training in up-to-date relevant technologies and modern machinery as well as neuropsychological material.   

It goes without saying that Psychology is a fascinating science that already attracts the attention of very many students across the world during the last 70 years at least. However, could this journey to knowledge become more thrilling? With cognitive neuroscience, the answer is undoubtedly, YES!