The Simple Neuroscience of Metacognition
By: Natalie Wilcox and Brandon Slade - Founder of Untapped Learning
Metacognition is the concept of thinking about your thinking. For instance, if someone were to ask you, “Are you more alert in the morning or at night?” you would have to reflect on different periods of your day and different outcomes.
But how does your brain look at your own brain? The main structures involved are interneurons, which are neurons that connect different parts of the brain. They don’t have a function aside from helping different areas communicate. The interneurons that we are interested in are found in the anterior cingulate cortex and the right insula. The right side of the brain and the insula are known to help identify self. However, brain bits don’t do actions on their own, they have to receive a signal to activate. In this case, the signal is dopamine, which is transferred to the interneurons. We have discussed dopamine as a reward neurotransmitter before, but in this case it is going to talk to a different neurotransmitter called GABA. GABA synchronizes cells within the cingulate cortex and insula, which causes those self-reflection areas to be activated.
But why do we care about metacognition? Well, metacognition is one of our main executive function skills and has been found to be a predictor of academic success.
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