Cognition is the ability to process information received from the environment (external stimuli), from experience and from beliefs and the ability to convert this information into an internal knowledge. Cognition includes different cognitive processes such as attention, memory, language, reasoning, decision-making etc.

Brain plasticity, also known as neuroplasticity, refers to the ability of the brain to change and adapt as a result of experience, including during learning. This plasticity is present throughout life, and occurs in continuity with neurodevelopmental processes occurring in the womb and during early childhood. Understanding how neuronal networks are established and can be modified is essential for education, understanding of neuropediatric disorders, clinical rehabilitation, and aging.

Why is the human being the only species to speak? Which regions enable the human being to recognize words, to understand speech, to articulate? This field of cognitive neuroscience aims at identifying high-level perceptual and cognitive processes of audition, phonology, semantics and executive control and to understand the causes of language and communication impairments.

Perception represents the ability to receive, identify, understand and interpret sensory information from the external or internal environment. This field studies how the brain processes this sensory low-level information (sounds, shapes, odors…) to higher-level information (speech understanding, object recognition…). Social perception is also a part of perception and focuses on how the brain processes faces and emotional expressions.

This field aims at understanding how the brain generates mouvement, and how sensory information is perceived, integrated and interpreted. It addresses topics such as exteroception (perception of the outside world), proprioception (perception one’s own body) and interoception (perception of internal movements and pain, hunger…), which control body posture, locomotion, and goal-oriented motor behavior.