Theory and Research into Practice: Educational Neuroscience

The most interesting result of my doctoral and post-doctoral research on musical prodigies was that their most important brain process was executive functioning, not musical sensitivity, as you might expect. Relatively enhanced executive functioning enables more focused attention, which in turn supports a prodigiously steep learning curve. The considerable enjoyment that these children get from rapid and mistake-free learning, I suggest, provides the motivation for their hours of practice. Together, these results show how brain functioning is best described as systems of interacting functions of (presumably) interconnected functional modules. Brain imaging techniques such as fMRI show us the location of functional brain regions associated with particular cognitive tasks. Brain recordingtechniques such as electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) show us when these brain functions become active. Newer imaging techniques such as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) are beginning to show maps of interconnectivity. It is by combining the data from these various approaches that a fuller understanding of brain function is being constructed. One of the most challenging questions about brain function is how the brain organises itself. The key to the answer lies in the brain's intensive neural interconnectivity. An important principle of brain functional development is that the role of each functional module (discrete cortical region, or sub-cortical organelle) is determined by its inputs and outputs-that is, by what sort of information the module receives, and transmits. This is how the myriad undifferentiated parts of a newborn's brain grow to become different specialist information processors. For example, cortical areas at the rear of the brain become the visual cortex by receiving information about visual stimuli from the visual nerve pathways from the eyes, and by' sending processed visual information out to other brain areas that are developing responsibilities for visually dependent cognition, such as facial recognition, movement, reaching and grasping, and so on. Feedback from the success at these activities reinforces the functional acuity of this emergent visual system. Not surprisingly, as a child grows, the most interconnected brain areas are the last to mature. These are the frontal lobes, which, with dense connections to all parts of the brain, support the higher-order cognitive processes such as executive functioning, directed attention, working memory, moral judgment and creative thinking. An evolutionary perspective is helpful in understanding how the outcome of our dense neural interconnectivity is best understood in terms of systems. Our brains didn't evolve to enable us to live in our modern society: our brains evolved in our primate ancestors to adapt to the demands of living in jungle and savannah. Our brains survive (more or less) well in our modern societies by combining our evolved brain functions into systems that adapt to modern societal demands. Moreover, we often adapt and change society to accommodate the characteristics of these emerging brain systems. The Internet is a good example.