PUBlic Professor Claudia Gonzalez

Dr. Claudia Gonzalez

From Action to Cognition: How the Body Shapes the Mind

We often picture the brain as a powerful computer built for thinking, reasoning and solving problems. But the brain did not evolve for abstract thought; it evolved for action. Long before language, logic or executive function, our ancestors had to reach, grasp and navigate through a complex world. The same brain systems that control our hands and movements also shape how we perceive, learn and solve problems.

In this talk, Dr. Claudia Gonzalez explores how everyday behaviours, from grasping a cup to reaching for something in the dark, reveal the deep links between action and cognition. Drawing on research from her Brain in Action Laboratory, she shows that patterns of hand use, and their variations across age and sex, shed light on how each hemisphere of the brain supports different cognitive abilities. Ultimately, Dr. Gonzalez maintains that cognition is, at its core, embodied: rooted in the simple act of interacting with the world.

Dr. Claudia Gonzalez (MSc '00, PhD '04) grew up in Mexico City, and her curiosity about why people behave the way they do led her to study psychology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). As her questions deepened, she realized that to truly understand behaviour, she needed to understand the brain. That search brought her to Canada, where she completed her master’s and PhD in neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge and later trained in cognitive neuroscience at Western University.

Today, Dr. Gonzalez is a Professor and Board of Governors Research Chair and a former Canada Research Chair at ULethbridge. In her Brain in Action Laboratory, she combines psychology, neuroscience and kinesiology to study how the brain links perception and action, and how basic behaviours like reaching and grasping shape cognitive functions such as language, spatial ability and executive function.

Dr. Gonzalez also works to bring science into the community through Building Brains Together, a partnership that develops evidence-based play activities to support brain development and cognitive skills in children, youth and older adults. These programs help strengthen attention, memory and problem solving, while fostering emotional and social growth. For Dr. Gonzalez, science and community are deeply connected: discoveries from the lab inform practice, and real-world experiences spark new questions for research.