Matthew Bednarczyk

Background

Matthew completed a M.Sc. degree at the Université de Montréal under the supervision of Dr. Karl Fernandes. His project focused on hippocampal and subventricular zone neurogenesis and how neurogenesis and neural precursor activity are affected by physical activity and environmental enrichment.

Research Interests

Matthew is fascinated by the philosophy of mind and by consciousness. He is an affirmed "monist" and believes that higher-order functions and phenomena (e.g., thinking, logic, introspection, art, musicality, etc.) derive from the basic organization and behavior of neurons - although it is certainly not that simple.

The philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett has postulated that for an organism to be conscious, it must be capable of producing and interpreting a narrative. One can presume that narratives are derived from memories and how one associates these memories with cogent or salient information. Matthew's broad research interest, therefore, is centered on how memories are produced and encoded - and how they contribute to higher level cognitive processes. More specifically, he is interested by the form and function of the hippocampus and how it contributes to the formation of spatial, explicit and declarative memories.