- The Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group (HUM-379) of the Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center has been distinguished with the XXIII edition of the Social Council Award, in recognition of its outstanding research work and its significant impact on the dissemination and transfer of knowledge for the improvement of people's quality of life.
In our daily lives, people are confronted with hundreds of stimuli that provide us with information. How do we select what is relevant, how do we maintain our concentration, or how do we interpret the world around us? To answer these and other questions, and to understand the complexity of the human mind, the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group (HUM-379) has been studying cognitive and neural processes. In particular, they have addressed attention and its development, perception, cognitive control, language, and affective and social processing.
This group, currently led by Professor Juan Lupiáñez, originates in 1995. Since then, it has established itself as one of the pillars of research in Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Granada. His contribution has been fundamental for developing the Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), recently recognized as a María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence.
"If anything has characterized our group, it is that it is a place where we grow together, in collaboration and in company, where excellence is never at odds with care and personal relationships," said Juan Lupiáñez in his speech at the awards ceremony.
He also highlighted the impact of several of the group's projects on society, both in the outreach of neuroscience to the non-specialized public and in the transfer of knowledge to healthcare environments or in the promotion of cognitive, social and emotional skills in children and adolescents.
Innovation and commitment to society
The group's research has allowed the scientific community to deepen the understanding of essential cognitive processes such as attention, perception and language. They use advanced neuroimaging techniques such as Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, electroencephalography, brain stimulation techniques (tDCS and TMS), and other physiological measures to study these processes.
The HUM-379 Group stands out for its national and international collaboration networks, for example, with researchers from other centers such as Professor Luiz Pessoa, director of the Maryland Neuroimaging Center, in the United States, and Professor Laurel Trainor, director of the McMaster Institute for Music & the Mind (MIMM).
He has also established collaborations with different hospitals and patient associations to help people with neurodevelopmental disorders or cognitive impairment recover their functionality. In this regard, Lupiáñez highlighted the role of two researchers who belonged to the group and were pioneers in transferring neuroscience knowledge into practice:
"I would like to dedicate this award to Marisa Arnedo and Mónica Triviño, for their pioneering work in neuropsychology and early care. Few people have so well combined experimental rigor and research excellence with humanity in their treatment of patients".
Throughout the group's 30 years of existence, its work has resulted in several practical applications that improve people's quality of life. An example is Neuromindset, a spin-off of the UGR, which develops educational tools based on scientific evidence for children and adolescents. It was created in the Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, led by Charo Rueda. Neuromindset has established itself as a reference company in developing educational tools based on scientific evidence aimed at promoting children and adolescents' cognitive, social and emotional skills.
High-impact research and publications
In the last decade, the HUM-379 Group has demonstrated exceptional productivity, with over 500 publications indexed in Scopus, an H index of 64 and more than 8,400 citations.
Likewise, its members have supervised more than 50 doctoral theses and have been awarded more than 50 research projects. Among them, we highlight the recent Starting Grant in Psychology from the European Research Council for the CONNECTS project (Cognitive and Neural Computations of Semantics) that received the researcher Javier Ortiz Tudela, a group member.
“We are proud and happy that this work that we do with so much affection is today recognized by this award granted by the Social Council of the University of Granada”, concluded Lupiáñez in his speech.
- For more information about the group and its researchers, visit their website.