COGNITIVE RESEARCH

The term "cognitive," as in cognitive research, generally pertains to the action or process of knowing. Usage of the word (according to the Oxford English Dictionary) dates as far back as the late sixteenth century, when it was used in reference to discussions of Platonic theories of knowledge. Presumably, today, the type of "knowledge" researchers hope to attain is vastly different than that "realm of forms" and heavenly knowledge sought by Plato in his dialogues. Though, there is a sort of legendary aspect to cognitive research, as the human brain remains a largely unknown terrain, a kind of "holy grail" that modern science is constantly striving to wrap its hands around. And, for the most part, they are succeeding, though the process is proving both long and fraught with potholes along the way.

The field of "cognitive science," by comparison, is much younger. As recently as 1999, two of the area's founding names (Lakoff and Johnson) defined their use of "cognitive" to mean "any kind of mental operation or structure that can be studied in precise terms." Like the notion of cognitive research, Lakoff and Johnson's conceptualization is very broad, and should not be confused with, say, the more specific use of "cognitive" in analytic philosophy, where the term refers to formal rules and truth conditional semantics.

One of the recent benefits of ongoing cognitive research is a firmer understanding of how herbs and supplements interact with the human brain. In some cases, cognitive research has shown certain mixtures of herbs can increase not only rates of information acquisition and accuracy, but also extend the time the brain retains this information.  This is exciting news, but also news that, in the herbal remedy and Ayurvedic world, is actually old news.