Since the impressive technological advances in brain imaging in the 1990s, neuroscience has contributed significantly to the development of cognitive science. By examining the mechanisms associated with perception, memory, attention, emotion and learning, researchers can now test certain hypotheses about how we learn in ways that were not previously possible.
These advances do not mean that neuroscience can replace educational psychology, pedagogy or the experience of teachers. Rather, neuroscience can complement these fields by providing another level of understanding of the biological mechanisms and constraints involved in learning.
This is one of the ideas explored by Olivier Houdé, a specialist in cognitive development and learning, in his book L’école du cerveau : De Montessori, Freinet et Piaget aux sciences cognitives. From his perspective, and that of a growing number of researchers working at the intersection of education and cognitive science, neuroscience can contribute to our understanding of learning—provided its findings are interpreted carefully and translated into educational practice with appropriate scientific evaluation.
Neuroscience 101
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system, from neurons and neural networks to behaviour and cognition. It draws on many disciplines, including biology, chemistry, psychology, mathematics, computer science and medicine.
The field itself includes several branches and sub-disciplines. Among those particularly relevant to education are cognitive neuroscience, affective neuroscience and social neuroscience.
Cognitive neuroscience combines neuroscience with cognitive sciences such as psychology to better understand the neural systems associated with behaviour and cognition. Researchers may use neuropsychological tests, cognitive tasks, psychophysics and brain-imaging techniques to investigate functions such as perception, memory, attention and language.
Affective neuroscience examines the neural processes associated with emotion, while social neuroscience investigates the biological mechanisms involved in social processes and behaviours.
Together, these disciplines can contribute to a more complete understanding of the cognitive, emotional and social processes involved in learning.
Observing the brain during learning
At the end of the 20th century, the development of sophisticated brain-imaging techniques—particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI—gave researchers new ways of studying the brain while people performed cognitive tasks.
Unlike techniques that rely solely on observing behaviour or asking participants to describe their mental processes, neuroimaging provides an indirect window into changes in brain activity associated with cognition.
It is important, however, to understand what these technologies can and cannot do.
fMRI does not directly measure thoughts, intelligence or neuronal activity. Instead, it detects changes in blood oxygenation that are associated with neural activity. Researchers must therefore interpret brain-imaging results alongside behavioural data and other experimental measures.
Brain activity observed in a particular region also does not necessarily prove that a specific mental process is taking place. Cognitive processes usually depend on complex, interacting neural networks rather than isolated brain regions.
Even with these limitations, neuroimaging has contributed substantially to our understanding of learning.
Researchers have investigated, among other things, the neural processes involved in academic skills such as reading and arithmetic (Dehaene, 2007, 2011), the mechanisms of neuroplasticity, the interaction between emotion and cognition, and the role of executive functions such as attention and inhibitory control.
Researchers have also identified several cognitive processes that appear particularly important for effective learning. Stanislas Dehaene, for example, has summarized four major factors that support learning: attention, active engagement, error feedback and consolidation.
These should not be understood as universal rules that explain every form of learning. Rather, they provide a useful framework for understanding several important cognitive mechanisms involved in acquiring and retaining knowledge.
Another area of research concerns cognitive inhibition—the ability to suppress an intuitive or automatic response when it is inappropriate.
Olivier Houdé and his colleagues have proposed that inhibitory control plays a particularly important role in reasoning and cognitive development. Houdé has suggested extending traditional dual-process models of thinking by emphasizing an additional inhibitory-control mechanism capable of suppressing intuitive but misleading responses.
This remains a theoretical framework within an active field of research rather than a universally accepted model of human thought.
What is particularly interesting for education, according to Steve Masson, Professor at the Faculty of Education of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and Director of the Laboratoire de recherche en neuroéducation, is that researchers are increasingly examining not only how the brain functions, but also how learning can influence its development.
In his article The Contributions of Neuroeducation to Teaching: From Neuromyths to Current Discoveries, Masson also emphasizes another potential contribution of neuroscience to education: understanding some of the constraints imposed by the structure and functioning of the brain.
A better understanding of these constraints may help researchers investigate why certain forms of learning are particularly difficult and identify pedagogical approaches worth testing.
Neuroeducation and neuropedagogy
The terms “neuroeducation” and “neuropedagogy” are often used to describe research at the intersection of neuroscience, cognitive science and education.
Olivier Houdé explains in L’école du cerveau:
“The frontiers of the humanities and social sciences are being renewed today, particularly for school education enlightened by cognitive science and neuroscience. With this in mind, in the early 2000s, following the first demonstration by brain imaging of the impact of a pedagogical intervention on students’ brains during a reasoning process, I introduced the theme neuropedagogy in France. It is strictly synonymous with neuroeducation.”
These approaches aim to investigate how knowledge about cognitive and neural processes might contribute to educational research.
However, translating findings from laboratory neuroscience into classroom practice remains challenging. Evidence that a particular cognitive or neural mechanism exists does not automatically tell teachers how they should teach.
Educational interventions still need to be tested directly in real learning environments.
The new cognitive sciences
Brain-imaging technology continues to advance rapidly.
One striking example is the Iseult MRI scanner at the NeuroSpin Brain Imaging Centre in France. With a magnetic field strength of 11.7 teslas, Iseult is one of the most powerful MRI systems designed for human brain research.
Its exceptionally strong magnetic field allows researchers to produce extremely high-resolution images and reveal anatomical detail that would be difficult or impractical to obtain using conventional clinical MRI scanners.
These developments are occurring alongside major advances in artificial intelligence and computing, which make it possible to analyse increasingly large and complex datasets produced by neuroscience research.
As Olivier Houdé reminds us, however, these technological developments form part of a much longer history of cognitive science.
In the Vocabulaire de sciences cognitives, Houdé and his colleagues described cognitive science as an interdisciplinary effort involving neuroscience, psychology, artificial intelligence, linguistics and philosophy.
Since the mid-20th century, researchers in these fields have attempted to understand the relationship between the mind, the brain, the body and computation through experimentation, modelling and increasingly sophisticated technologies.
Modern cognitive-science laboratories therefore combine many tools: behavioural experiments, response-time measurements, neuropsychological assessments, computer modelling, EEG, MEG, PET and fMRI, among others.
Brain imaging is thus one tool within a much broader scientific toolbox.
Putting neuroscience to good use in education
Greater scientific access to the functioning of the brain has generated considerable enthusiasm—but also misunderstandings. One important risk is the development of “neuromyths”: educational claims that sound neuroscientific but are based on misunderstandings, oversimplifications or weak evidence.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and Matthias Faeth have warned about this problem in Emotions, Learning, and the Brain: Exploring the Educational Implications of Affective Neuroscience.
Educators, understandably eager to improve learning, have sometimes adopted “brain-based” approaches that are not adequately supported by evidence. Examples include rigidly classifying students as visual, auditory or kinesthetic learners and assuming that instruction must be matched to these categories, or claims that simply listening to Mozart produces lasting improvements in cognitive development.
Research does not support using these ideas as general principles of instruction. Olivier Houdé likewise urges caution when interpreting neuroscientific results. Brain activity is complex; researchers may disagree about its interpretation, and findings produced under controlled laboratory conditions cannot always be transferred directly into classrooms. For this reason, neuroscience should not be treated as an instruction manual for teaching. Instead, it can provide hypotheses and insights that must then be evaluated through educational research.
Teachers themselves also have an essential role in this process. Their experience provides knowledge about learning environments, student behaviour and pedagogical challenges that laboratory research alone cannot capture. Houdé therefore argues for greater dialogue between scientists and educators. New scientific findings can inform educational practice, while observations from classrooms can generate new questions for researchers to investigate.
The role of emotion in learning
One area in which neuroscience and psychology have significantly influenced our understanding of learning is the relationship between emotion and cognition. Historically, emotion and rational thought were often treated as relatively separate processes. Contemporary research instead shows that they interact continuously. Emotion can influence attention, motivation, memory, decision-making and social behaviour—all of which play important roles in learning.
Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and colleagues have contributed substantially to this field, emphasizing that learning takes place within social and emotional contexts. This does not mean that positive emotions automatically produce learning or that neuroscience provides a simple recipe for creating the “ideal” emotional classroom. Rather, it highlights the importance of considering cognition, motivation, emotion and social interaction together when studying learning.
From the laboratory to the classroom
The most productive relationship between neuroscience and education is therefore likely to be collaborative rather than prescriptive. Educational psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience and classroom research each examine learning from different perspectives. None provides a complete explanation on its own.
Neuroscience can help researchers understand some of the biological mechanisms and constraints underlying learning. Cognitive psychology can investigate processes such as memory, attention and reasoning. Educational research can determine whether particular teaching strategies actually improve learning in real classrooms.
Together, these approaches can provide a richer picture of how learning occurs. As Olivier Houdé argues, neuroscience should not erase the historical foundations of pedagogy. Many influential educational thinkers—including Montessori, Freinet, Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner and Skinner—developed theories based on careful observation, psychology and experimentation long before modern brain-imaging techniques existed.
Neuroscience can sometimes reinforce these ideas, sometimes refine them and sometimes challenge them. But it should be understood as an additional source of evidence rather than a replacement for educational science.
The most important question for educators is therefore not simply:
“What does the brain tell us to do?”
but rather:
“What can neuroscience, psychology and educational research collectively tell us about how people learn?”
Approached with this level of scientific caution, neuroscience can make a valuable contribution to education—not by providing simple answers, but by helping us ask better questions about learning.
Sources
Houdé, Olivier. L’école du cerveau : De Montessori, Freinet et Piaget aux sciences cognitives. Collection Le Livre de Poche, 2021.
Immordino-Yang, Mary Helen; Singh, Vanessa. “The Role of Emotion and Skilled Intuition in Learning,” in Emotions, Learning, and the Brain: Exploring the Educational Implications of Affective Neuroscience. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2016.
Masson, Steve. “The Contributions of Neuroeducation to Teaching: From Neuromyths to Current Discoveries.”
Dehaene, Stanislas. Les neurones de la lecture, 2007.
Dehaene, Stanislas. Apprendre à lire, 2011.
Note: Quotations have been freely translated.