TEHRAN- Iranian researchers have designed a virtual reality system to help the studies in cognitive neuroscience, announced the Cognitive Sciences and Technologies Council at Vice Presidency for Science and Technology on Sunday.  

The research was carried out in Tehran University, supervised by Mohammad-Reza Abolqasemi-Dehaqani, assistant professor in the faculty of computer and electrical engineering.

Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental processes. It addresses the questions of how cognitive activities are affected or controlled by neural circuits in the brain.

According to Abolqasemi-Dehaqani, the system can help researchers to record neurocognitive responses with great precision because it can thoroughly record and control all the small details of cognitive neuroscience tests; it also offers more methods for cellular recording.

“All standard mazes used in cognitive researches are simulated in this system, so the system can produce desired maps with showing a variety of signs, it can also generate audial stimuli and stimulate different organs both mechanically and electrically in a controlled time span.”

“One of the challenges in cognitive neuroscience is how to simultaneously record the activities of nervous cells and run cognitive tests. One way to overcome this challenge is to simulate the real environment of tested animals by using virtual reality. By using this method, we can apply the most up to date methods of cellular recording and concurrently use cognitive stimuli,” he added.

According to Abolqasemi-Dehaqani, using virtual reality environment is a new growing trend in neurocognitive research, so this new system offers a cheap and high-quality environment for Iranian researches to do their studies.

SJ/MG