News

Joint promotion of Taiwan Studies Initiative and Huayu BEST Program by President Wu and UCLA Chancellor

To deepen the cooperation between NTNU and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), President Cheng-Chih Wu led a delegation to our sister school in the United States on August 18th and met with the Chancellor Gene Block and several administrators and deans to further exchanged views on the Taiwan Huayu BEST Program partnership. Through this meeting, the friendship between the two universities was strengthened. The UCLA Asia Pacific Center also held a luncheon for the delegation and invited about 30 scholars and PhD students to join.

NTNU Visits University of Texas at Austin for Deepening Cooperation

The delegation of NTNU led by President Cheng-Chih Wu visited University of Texas at Austin on the morning of August 16th and met with President Jay Hartzell and many senior university officers to deepen the relationship between NTNU and UT-Austin.

NTNU strengthens education cooperation with University of Maryland and other US partners

National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) and the University of Maryland (UMD) jointly signed a cooperative agreement on Wednesday to establish a Taiwan Huayu BEST Program partnership between the two universities, an endeavor that will expand educational and language exchanges and resources for both sides. The agreement was signed by President Darryll J. Pines of UMD and President Cheng-Chih Wu of NTNU during an official ceremony. Deputy Representative Robin J. C. Cheng of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States served as witness to the signing.

How does genetic inheritance affect learning and memory?

This study aims to explore how epigenetic factors affect learning and memory in academic performanc. Previous studies have shown that genetic factors affect about 60% of the variation in scientific learning (Polmin & Haworth, 2008). However, recent studies have indicated that the interaction of genes with the environment (epigenetics) may be the most important factor affecting brain development, brain plasticity, and learning behavior. Environmental factors activate intracellular signaling pathways and alter the state of epigenetic genes. Epigenetic factors affect neuroplasticity through neurophysiology, which in turn regulates learning and memory. One of the epigenetic factors, non-coding small molecule RNA (MicroRNA) is currently considered to be the primary factor regulating brain development and cognitive learning memory. The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between non-coding small molecule RNA in neural pathways related to brain plasticity, cognitive ability, and scientific learning effectiveness. In addition, this study also examined how genetic factors, including genetics and epigenetics, affect adolescent cognitive function and scientific learning memory. Discovering how learning environments interact with genetics will provide important insights into the academic and practical aspects of adaptive learning.

Jokes for the brain: Unlock the neural mechanisms of the brain in reading different humorous materials

Humor is a good medicine for physical and mental health, as well as an effective lubricant for interpersonal relationships. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have revealed the neural structure of the brain in reading humorous materials, and the different brain regions dedicated to reading and understanding different humorous materials. Based on this, Chen and Chang’s research team is the first to use event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the cognitive processes of different humorous materials, taking advantage of the high temporal resolution of ERPs to clarify the dynamic temporal differences in the cognitive processes of humor comprehension. The results not only enable us to understand how the brain interprets different types of humorous materials (e.g., pun jokes and semantic jokes) from the perspective of brain science, but also contribute to the integration of psychological research in Taiwan and abroad, and facilitate academic/scientific exchanges between international scholars.