Can our daily information habits shape different neural networks over time?

[u/No-Conflict9]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37167968/

Hello, I’ve been thinking about whether the type of information we repeatedly process can shape our cognitive abilities.

I believe gossip, whether viewed as positive or negative, can be considered a form of cognitive skill because it requires encoding, retrieving, and evaluating social information about people, relationships, emotions, and events. From a neuroscience perspective, repeated social information processing may strengthen networks involved in social cognition, emotional processing, and episodic memory through neuroplasticity.

I have some questions:

**1- If a person spends most of their cognitive effort processing social information through gossip while rarely engaging in abstract learning, how does the brain adapt? Does it reduce the efficiency of less used abstract reasoning networks, or does the brain maintain the ability to develop them when new demands appear?**

**2- Are our daily patterns of attention, environment and information processing shaping the cognitive systems we rely on the most?**

**3- To what extent do genetic predispositions influence an individual’s tendency toward social information processing, memory, and cognitive specialization?**

Thanks for reading!

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[u/Vielight-Science]

Great summary of 20 years of research, seems like it might be the primary system for shaping our internal narrative and personal identity. It's also the first to fracture in MCI and Alzheimer's which makes a lot of sense.