Human cognition is responsible for all the thinking, analytical and reasoning tasks. Cognitive neuroscience studies the biological processes that form the basis of these cognitive tasks. This branch is a combination of behavioural and biological sciences as it studies the functions of the brain while performing cognitive tasks.
An example of cognitive neuroscience is measuring the changes in the level of dopamine when taking a decision. When we take a decision that results in a reward, the activity level of dopamine increases and as a result, it increases every time the mind takes a decision, in anticipation of a reward.
Also, it helps in assessing the functions of the neurons in cognitively impaired individuals. The functioning of neurons while carrying out a cognitive tasks in healthy brains and lesioned brains provides an insight into the extent of the damage.
When we know the exact areas of the malfunction in the brain that result in specific disabilities, these areas can be more extensively studied in more lesioned brains and research can be undertaken to these malfunctions of the neurons and expect healthy brain functioning while undertaking a cognitive task. Also, while studying the malfunctioning areas, it is known that the surrounding healthy areas of the brain take on the work of the damaged neurons.
