Cognitive neuroscience is a branch of both psychology and neuroscience, unifying and overlapping with several sub-disciplines such as cognitive psychology, psychobiology and neurobiology. Methods employed in cognitive neuroscience include experimental paradigms from psychophysics and cognitive psychology, functional neuroimaging, electrophysiological studies of neural systems and, increasingly, cognitive genomics and behavioral genetics. Clinical studies in psychopathology in patients with cognitive deficits constitute an important aspect of cognitive neuroscience.

Cognitive Neuroscience is particularly relative to the study of Dementia realated diseases such as Alzheimers Disease. Alzheimer’s is characterised by symptoms like loss of memory, loss of language skills and impairments in skilled movements. Additionally other cognitive functions such as planning or decision-making which are connected to the frontal and temporal lobe can be reduced. The correlation between memory and language in this context is very important because they work together in order to establish conversations. When both are impaired, communication becomes a difficult task.
Scientists believe that long before the first symptoms appear nerve cells that store and retrieve information have already begun to degenerate. There are two theories giving an explanation for the causes of Alzheimer’s disease. The first describes plaques as protein fragmens which defect the connection between nerve cells. They arise when little fragments release from nerve cell walls and associate with other fragments from outside the cell. These combinded fragments, called plaques, append to the outside of nerve cells and destroy the connections. Then the nerve cells start to die because they are no longer provided with nutrients. As a conclusion the stimuli are no longer transferred. The second theory explains that tangles limit the functions of nerve cells. They are twisted fibers of another protein that form inside brain cells and destroy the vital cell transport made of proteins.

Neuropsychological studies show that cognitive deficits associated with the Alzheimer's disease (AD) are distinct from age-associated cognitive decline. Quantitative and qualitative differences are apparent across many cognitive domains, but are especially obvious in episodic memory (particularly delayed recall), semantic knowledge, and some aspects of executive functions. The qualitatively distinct pattern of deficits is less salient in very old AD patients than in younger AD patients. Although decline in episodic memory is usually the earliest cognitive change that occurs prior to the development of the AD dementia syndrome, asymmetry in cognitive abilities may also occur in this "preclinical" phase of the disease and predict imminent dementia. Discrete patterns of cognitive deficits occur in AD and several neuropathologically distinct ageassociated neurodegenerative disorders. Knowledge of these differences helps to clinically distinguish among various causes of dementia and provides useful models for understanding brain-behavior relationships that mediate cognitive abilities affected in various neurodegenerative diseases.

For more information on Alzheimer's disease and the role of Cognitive Neuroscience in its treatment and diagnosis, visit our Medivision web portal at www.alzheimersdisease-info.com