02 SEP 2016 by ideonexus

 How Brains Respond to Positive/Negative Feedback in Child...

In children up to eight or nine years old, the dopamine-modulating reward center in the nucleus accumbens reacts strongly to positive feedback (activating the prefrontal cortex) and minimally to negative feedback. In older children, increased activation still occurs in the PFC when dopamine is released in response to positive feedback (particularly in response to correct answers/ predictions). However, the greatest age-related change is the higher reactivity of the NAc to negative feedback an...
Folksonomies: learning neurology feedback
Folksonomies: learning neurology feedback
  1  notes
 
30 DEC 2013 by ideonexus

 The Prefontal Cortex

Executive functions take place in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. I love the term that Stanislas Dehaene uses to describe this part of the brain—a global neuronal workspace. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for the ability to exchange information across the high-level areas of the brain, Dehaene says, so that our behavior can be guided by our accumulated knowledge. That’s the beauty and the purpose of executive functions: they enable us to control ourselves, to reflect deeply, and...
Folksonomies: brain cognition
Folksonomies: brain cognition
  1  notes

Insightful description of its purpose in executive function, taking the information stored in our brains to control the rest of it.

24 MAR 2013 by ideonexus

 Attentive States of Mind

Whether you think of it as a sin, a temptation, a lazy habit of mind, or a medical condition, the phenomenon begs the same question: why is it so damn hard to pay attention? It’s not necessarily our fault. As neurologist Marcus Raichle learned after decades of looking at the brain, our minds are wired to wander. Wandering is their default. Whenever our thoughts are suspended between specific, discrete, goal-directed activities, the brain reverts to a so-called baseline, “resting” state...
Folksonomies: attention mindfulness
Folksonomies: attention mindfulness
  1  notes

Why is it so hard to maintain? The brain has a default "resting" state of inattetiveness, multitasking confuses our attentiveness.