Eighth International School On Mind, Brain And Education
2013 July 30 - August 04
Science Education
in the Digital Era
Directors: Antonio M. Battro, Kurt W. Fischer and Diego Golombek
Program officer: María Lourdes Majdalani
Hitachi and Mayo Clinic, JAPAN
Toward physiological understanding of Mind, Brain and Education
Education has been a critical issue for human societies [1]. Although it is still difficult to quantify educational processes, teaching and learning have been studied from the viewpoint of neuroscience. For example, learning disabilities such as dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia have been understood in the context of neurological disorder. Also, effective educational methods can be put forward on the basis of neuroscience. Physiological brain research is usually conducted by observing neuronal activity or cerebral hemodynamics taking advantage of state-of-the-art technologies. Since noninvasive method is required for the human brain, neuronal activity should be measured by electroencephalography (EEG) or magnetoencephalography (MEG), and hemodynamics should be obtained by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Moreover, it has been recognized that the correlation between neuronal activity and hemodynamics, namely, neurovascular coupling (NVC), is an important aspect to understand the brain functions or neuronal diseases. For example, Alzheimer’s diseases have been widely studied by focusing on NVC [2]. NVC can be investigated by simultaneously observing neuronal activity and hemodynamics using two or more modalities. In this talk, I will review previous studies toward physiological understanding of mind, brain and education, and introduce our recent study on simultaneous measurement of neuronal activity and cortical hemodynamics by unshielded MEG and NIRS [3]. Current and future educational issues will be also discussed.