Awareness of one’s own mental processes and the mental processes of others is known as:
Summary
Read our papersThe BasicsCognition is defined as ‘the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.’ At Cambridge Cognition we look at it as the mental processes relating to the input and storage of information and how that information is then used to guide your behavior. It is in essence, the ability to perceive and react, process and understand, store and retrieve information, make decisions and produce appropriate responses. The modern word ‘cognition’ actually has its roots back to Latin, the word ‘cognoscere’ which is to ‘get to know’. With that in mind, cognitive functioning is therefore critical for day-to-day life, governing our thoughts and actions. We need cognition to help us understand information about the world around us and interact safely with our environment, as the sensory information we receive is vast and complicated: cognition is needed to distill all this information down to its essentials. Show What role does cognition have?Cognition has a physical basis in the brain with over 100 billion nerve cells in a healthy human brain. Each of these can have up to 10,000 connections with other nerve cells called neurons. All of this makes it an incredibly complicated organ. In order to begin to understand the brain we sometimes rely on simplified scientific models, some of which have been developed using studies in rodents and non-human primates. These studies help us better understand certain parts of our cognition, such as how we learn language, and have also been the basis for many breakthroughs in treatments for common disorders of cognition such as Alzheimer’s disease. Cognition fundamentally controls our thoughts and behaviors and these are regulated by discrete brain circuits which are underpinned by a number of neurotransmitter systems. There are a number of brain chemicals which play major roles in regulating cognitive processes; including dopamine, noradrenaline (norepinephrine), serotonin, acetylcholine, glutamate and GABA. In order to better understand what drives certain behaviors, in both healthy and disease states, it is important to consider cognition and the underlying neurobiology that underpins these behaviors. Our distinct cognitive functions arise because of processes occurring within certain parts of our brain, but only some of these, end up entering our conscious awareness. Summary of cognitive functions/domainsCognition is not a unitary concept and various cognitive functions, or cognitive ‘domains’, responsible for regulation of specific behaviours or actions have been identified. These functions are often convoluted, and operate synergistically making it challenging to measure distinct cognitive processes. However, modern cognitive testing batteries such as CANTAB are able to tease apart distinct cognitive functions (see Figure 1), that have been shown to be dependent upon diverse neuronal circuitry. Figure 1. Domain specificity of cognition and examples of component cognitive processes underlying these mechanisms Whilst we can split cognition up into these constituent processes, mapping these directly onto the cortex is far more complex. Whilst studies have localized specific regions of the brain that are heavily involved in distinct cognitive functions, such as the inferior frontal gyrus for response inhibition, mapping finite areas of the brain for all aspects of cognition is problematic, as human variability and the underlying neurobiology of the cortex mean mapping distinct cortical regions to distinct cognitive processes is unfeasible. What we can do is think of the brain in terms of regions that have responsibility for more general concepts of cognition. Figure 2 demonstrates how the brain is split up into five distinct areas all of which have different principle responsibilities. Figure 2. The neuroanatomy of the human brain How it affects us and why it is importantCognition is constantly changing and adapting to new information, regulating our behavior across our lifespan and is underpinned by both genetic and environmental factors. These environmental factors can even be before birth, such as foetal alcohol syndrome which is associated with severe impairment in cognition. Throughout infancy, childhood and adolescence our cognitive functions are constantly developing, and as we move into later adult life, as part of the normal aging process some of these functions begin to decline as neurons die and the mechanisms to replace these neurons becomes deficient. Understanding cognition is important not just for healthy cognitive development, but deficits occur in a number of neuropsychological disorders. Many of the biggest global health challenges are conditions associated with core cognitive problems; these deficits represent key therapeutic targets for early intervention. Being able to measure and monitor cognition has the potential to allow us to change lifestyles and ensure that our cognitive performance does not increase the rate of decline due to the normal aging process. |