The Virtuous Cycle between Education and Neuroscience

Educational neuroscience was born out of the promise that brain imaging would generate discoveries that change how we educate our children. Many neuro-scientists and educators alike feel that this promise has not been fulfilled and have begun to question the utility of this nascent field that is arising at the intersection of two well-established disciplines. We argue that discoveries in educational neuroscience should be considered from a holistic perspective, and we should not only ask “how can neuroscience contribute to education practice?,” but also “how can the study of education inform our understanding of the human brain?” Rather than expecting a one-way street from the lab to the classroom, we should strive for a virtuous cycle between education and neuroscience, and embrace interdisciplinary discoveries that would not be possible within the traditional confines of either discipline. The combination of education interventions with neuroscience methodologies is redefining our understanding of plasticity in the human brain and has already elucidated mechanisms by which a child’s environment sculpts brain circuits to achieve incredible new capacities like literacy.