Neuroscience and education : the role of emotions in the acceptance of a scientific model

The interest in understanding the functioning of the brain and the mind had, in recent decades, a vertiginous growth, transforming Neurosciences into a fundamental area for understanding the relations of the human beings with the natural and social world. Currently, modern Neuroscience provides a new understanding of different cognitive processes and reveals the neural properties, which give support to language, to arithmetic understanding, to the realization of calculations etc. Non-invasive methods like Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Electroencephalography have come to be used to scan the brain, changing old conceptions of various cognitive functions, and capable of bringing, in the future, significant results for Education. The objective of this work is to bring to the attention of researchers in Education the new paths opened up by research in Neuroscience. This work will present a pilot study of a research on the role of emotion in learning and construction of scientific knowledge. This research will be guided by work derived from Cognitive Psychology and the data will be collected and analysed by means of the technological and theoretical structures derived from Neurosciences