• Question: Are you interested into the cognitive science behind how the brain functions or purely the biological side?

    Asked by anon-252820 to Patricia on 4 May 2020.
    • Photo: Patricia Brown

      Patricia Brown answered on 4 May 2020:

      I’m interested in both! In university, I took courses that were exploring the neural basis of behaviours, in which we read studies that were looking for links between the molecular part of neuroscience and the cognitive/behavioural parts. These are the kinds of topics that got me interested in neuroscience in the first place, and after that I decided to focus a bit more on the molecular aspects. It’s really important to keep both in mind though, it gives me a perspective and reminds me of why I study neuroscience in the first place. On the flip side, people who study cognitive science and behaviours also need to know some of the fundamental molecular aspects to help them understand why things work the way they do. I hope this answers your question! 🙂

Comments

  • Photo: Gabriela

    Gabriela commented on :

    I don’t think we can separate the two. I am interested in the regulation of energy balance and one of the ways we do this is by regulating feeding behaviour- how much, how frequent and what kind of food. This is largely controlled by the brain in response to energy needs and the regulation in the brain is via metabolic signals in the neurons in brain centers that are involved in the regulation of such behaviour. So biochemical processes are involved in the regulation of actions that we label as behaviour.

  • Photo: Gaby

    Gaby commented on :

    I’m definitely interested in both. I took psychology as well as biology for A-level, and I really love reading about cognitive disorders in the famous book ‘The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat’. If you haven’t read this I would really recommend it – it’s like a little story book of weird and wonderful patients!