Paralleling two decades of growth in the emergent field known as educational neuroscience is an increasing concern that educational practices and programs should be evidence-based, however, the idea that neuroscience could potentially influence education is controversial. One of the criticisms, regarding applications of the findings produced in this discipline, concerns the artificiality of neuroscientific experiments and the oversimplified nature of the tests used to investigate cognitive processes in educational contexts. The simulations may not account for all of the variables present in real classroom activities. In this study, we aim to get a step closer to the formation of data-supported classroom methodologies by employing functional near-infrared spectroscopy in various experimental paradigms. First, we present two hyperscanning scenarios designed to explore realistic interdisciplinary contexts, i.e., the classroom. In a third paradigm, we present a case study of a single student evaluated with functional near-infrared spectroscopy and mobile eye-tracking glasses. These three experiments are performed to provide proofs of concept for the application of functional near-infrared spectroscopy in scenarios that more closely resemble authentic classroom routines and daily activities. The goal of our study is to explore the potential of this technique in hopes that it offers insights in experimental design to investigate teaching-learning processes during teacher-student interactions.

Storytelling is a distinctive human characteristic that may have played a fundamental role in humans’ ability to bond and navigate challenging social settings throughout our evolution. However, the potential impact of storytelling on regulating physiological and psychological functions has received little attention. We investigated whether listening to narratives from a storyteller can provide beneficial effects for children admitted to intensive care units. Biomarkers (oxytocin and cortisol), pain scores, and psycholinguistic associations were collected immediately before and after storytelling and an active control intervention (solving riddles that also involved social interaction but lacked the immersive narrative aspect). Compared with the control group, children in the storytelling group showed a marked increase in oxytocin combined with a decrease in cortisol in saliva after the 30-min intervention. They also reported less pain and used more positive lexical markers when describing their time in hospital. Our findings provide a psychophysiological basis for the short-term benefits of storytelling and suggest that a simple and inexpensive intervention may help alleviate the physical and psychological pain of hospitalized children on the day of the intervention.

Agradecimentos Apresentação Capítulo I-Neurociência e Educação: um diálogo necessário 1.1-Introdução 1.2-Neurociência e Educação: conexões Capítulo II-O Ensino de Ciências e as Emoções 2.1-Identificando o problema 2.2-O modelo de Mudança Conceitual e o Conflito Cognitivo 2.3-Emoção e Afetividade no Ensino de Ciências Capítulo III-Neurociência das emoções 3.1-"O que te emociona?" 3.2-Cognição X Emoção 3.3-Cognição e Emoção 3.4-O que é uma emoção? 3.4.a-Dois importantes modelos 3.4.b-O erro de Descartes Capítulo IV-Metodologia de Pesquisa 4.1-Educação: onde nascem nossas questões 4.2-Neurociência: onde emergem nossas respostas 4.3-Referencial teórico-metodológico: Damasio e a concepção alternativa de Descartes 4.3.1-O que é a condutância da pele? 4.3.2-A hipótese do marcador somático 4.3.3-O teste empírico: o Iowa Gambling Task 4.3.4-Elaborando uma explicação 4.4-O que foi medido e como medimos 4.5-Objetivos e questões 4.6-Uma particularidade nas RCP relacionadas ao desenho experimental proposto 4.7-O Experimento 4.7.1-Os Sujeitos: Experts e Novatos 4.7.2-Procedimentos 4.7.3-As questões 4.7.3.a-As questões controle 4.7.3.b-As questões de Física 4.8-O método de coleta e análise 4.9-O que foi coletado e analisado Capítulo V-Análise dos Dados 5.1-Análise e discussão parcial 5.2-A performance dos sujeitos no teste 5.3-A análise estatística e discussão parcial 5.4-Discussão Geral Conclusão Bibliografia Anexos

Hyperscanning studies using functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) have been performed to understand the neural mechanisms underlying human-human interactions. In this study, we propose a novel methodological approach that is developed for fNIRS multi-brain analysis. Our method uses support vector regression (SVR) to predict one brain activity time series using another as the predictor. We applied the proposed methodology to explore the teacher-student interaction, which plays a critical role in the formal learning process. In an illustrative application, we collected fNIRS data of the teacher and preschoolers’ dyads performing an interaction task. The teacher explained to the child how to add two numbers in the context of a game. The Prefrontal cortex and temporal-parietal junction of both teacher and student were recorded. A multivariate regression model was built for each channel in each dyad, with the student’s signal as the response variable and the teacher’s ones as the predictors. We compared the predictions of SVR with the conventional ordinary least square (OLS) predictor. The results predicted by the SVR model were statistically significantly correlated with the actual test data at least one channel-pair for all dyads. Overall, 29/90 channel-pairs across the five dyads (18 channels 5 dyads = 90 channel-pairs) presented significant signal predictions withthe SVR approach. The conventional OLS resulted in only 4 out of 90 valid predictions. These results demonstrated that the SVR could be used to perform channel-wise predictions across individuals, and the teachers’ cortical activity can be used to predict the student brain hemodynamic response.