Cognitive neuroscience is a branch of neuroscience involving the study of the neural mechanisms of cognition, but sometimes is seen as part of a wider interdisciplinary study of cognition, cognitive science.

Cognitive neuroscience overlaps with cognitive psychology, but whereas psychologists seek to understand the mind, cognitive neuroscience is concerned with understanding how the mental processes take place in the brain. The two areas have a great deal in common since an understanding of mental structure can inform theories about brain functions and knowledge about neural mechanisms is useful in understanding mental structure.

Methods include cognitive psychology, functional neuroimaging, neuropsychology and behavioral neuroscience. Cognitive neuroscience also makes contact with low-level data from electrophysiological studies of neural systems and, increasingly, cognitive genomics . The main theoretical approach is computational neuroscience, but more "abstract" information processing approaches derived from cognitive psychology and neuropsychology remain influential.

References

• Gazzaniga, M. S., Ed. (1999). Conversations in the Cognitive Nerosciences.
• Code, C. (1996). Classic Cases: Ancient & Modern Milestones in the Development of Neuropsychological Science. In: Code, C. et al “Classic Cases in Neuropsychology”.
• Parkin, A.J. (1996). “Explorations in Cognitive Neuropsychology”, pp. 1-23.
• Churchland, P.S. & Sejnowski, T.J. (1992). “The Computational Brain”.

See also

• Important publications in cognitive neuroscience