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Author: National Academy of Sciences Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 0309045290 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 195
Book Description
The brain ... There is no other part of the human anatomy that is so intriguing. How does it develop and function and why does it sometimes, tragically, degenerate? The answers are complex. In Discovering the Brain, science writer Sandra Ackerman cuts through the complexity to bring this vital topic to the public. The 1990s were declared the "Decade of the Brain" by former President Bush, and the neuroscience community responded with a host of new investigations and conferences. Discovering the Brain is based on the Institute of Medicine conference, Decade of the Brain: Frontiers in Neuroscience and Brain Research. Discovering the Brain is a "field guide" to the brainâ€"an easy-to-read discussion of the brain's physical structure and where functions such as language and music appreciation lie. Ackerman examines: How electrical and chemical signals are conveyed in the brain. The mechanisms by which we see, hear, think, and pay attentionâ€"and how a "gut feeling" actually originates in the brain. Learning and memory retention, including parallels to computer memory and what they might tell us about our own mental capacity. Development of the brain throughout the life span, with a look at the aging brain. Ackerman provides an enlightening chapter on the connection between the brain's physical condition and various mental disorders and notes what progress can realistically be made toward the prevention and treatment of stroke and other ailments. Finally, she explores the potential for major advances during the "Decade of the Brain," with a look at medical imaging techniquesâ€"what various technologies can and cannot tell usâ€"and how the public and private sectors can contribute to continued advances in neuroscience. This highly readable volume will provide the public and policymakersâ€"and many scientists as wellâ€"with a helpful guide to understanding the many discoveries that are sure to be announced throughout the "Decade of the Brain."
Author: National Academy of Sciences Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 0309045290 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 195
Book Description
The brain ... There is no other part of the human anatomy that is so intriguing. How does it develop and function and why does it sometimes, tragically, degenerate? The answers are complex. In Discovering the Brain, science writer Sandra Ackerman cuts through the complexity to bring this vital topic to the public. The 1990s were declared the "Decade of the Brain" by former President Bush, and the neuroscience community responded with a host of new investigations and conferences. Discovering the Brain is based on the Institute of Medicine conference, Decade of the Brain: Frontiers in Neuroscience and Brain Research. Discovering the Brain is a "field guide" to the brainâ€"an easy-to-read discussion of the brain's physical structure and where functions such as language and music appreciation lie. Ackerman examines: How electrical and chemical signals are conveyed in the brain. The mechanisms by which we see, hear, think, and pay attentionâ€"and how a "gut feeling" actually originates in the brain. Learning and memory retention, including parallels to computer memory and what they might tell us about our own mental capacity. Development of the brain throughout the life span, with a look at the aging brain. Ackerman provides an enlightening chapter on the connection between the brain's physical condition and various mental disorders and notes what progress can realistically be made toward the prevention and treatment of stroke and other ailments. Finally, she explores the potential for major advances during the "Decade of the Brain," with a look at medical imaging techniquesâ€"what various technologies can and cannot tell usâ€"and how the public and private sectors can contribute to continued advances in neuroscience. This highly readable volume will provide the public and policymakersâ€"and many scientists as wellâ€"with a helpful guide to understanding the many discoveries that are sure to be announced throughout the "Decade of the Brain."
Author: National Research Council Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 0309069882 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 610
Book Description
How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.
Author: Gregory Hickok Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0393244164 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 251
Book Description
An essential reconsideration of one of the most far-reaching theories in modern neuroscience and psychology. In 1992, a group of neuroscientists from Parma, Italy, reported a new class of brain cells discovered in the motor cortex of the macaque monkey. These cells, later dubbed mirror neurons, responded equally well during the monkey’s own motor actions, such as grabbing an object, and while the monkey watched someone else perform similar motor actions. Researchers speculated that the neurons allowed the monkey to understand others by simulating their actions in its own brain. Mirror neurons soon jumped species and took human neuroscience and psychology by storm. In the late 1990s theorists showed how the cells provided an elegantly simple new way to explain the evolution of language, the development of human empathy, and the neural foundation of autism. In the years that followed, a stream of scientific studies implicated mirror neurons in everything from schizophrenia and drug abuse to sexual orientation and contagious yawning. In The Myth of Mirror Neurons, neuroscientist Gregory Hickok reexamines the mirror neuron story and finds that it is built on a tenuous foundation—a pair of codependent assumptions about mirror neuron activity and human understanding. Drawing on a broad range of observations from work on animal behavior, modern neuroimaging, neurological disorders, and more, Hickok argues that the foundational assumptions fall flat in light of the facts. He then explores alternative explanations of mirror neuron function while illuminating crucial questions about human cognition and brain function: Why do humans imitate so prodigiously? How different are the left and right hemispheres of the brain? Why do we have two visual systems? Do we need to be able to talk to understand speech? What’s going wrong in autism? Can humans read minds? The Myth of Mirror Neurons not only delivers an instructive tale about the course of scientific progress—from discovery to theory to revision—but also provides deep insights into the organization and function of the human brain and the nature of communication and cognition.
Author: Carol Ann Paul Publisher: ISBN: Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 448
Book Description
Discovering Neurons is a collection of investigative laboratory experiments designed for the advanced undergraduate and the first or second year graduate student. In its three major sections, neurons are studied as: -- individual cells, including topics such as intracellular recording, immunocytochemistry, and HPLC -- forming connections, with experiments on tract tracing, information coding, and LTP, among others -- as coordinators of behavior, through approaches such as pharmacology, lesioning, and ethology. The fourth section focuses on techniques applicable to several experiments in the collection, including electrophysiology recording, surgery, anesthetics, and staining methods.
Author: Javier DeFelipe Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190842830 Category : Art Languages : en Pages : 513
Book Description
This collection contains hundreds of beautiful rarely-seen-before figures produced throughout the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century by famed father-of-modern-neuroscience Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934) and his contemporaries. Cajal was captivated by the beautiful shapes of the cells of the nervous system. He and his fellow scientists saw neurons as trees and glial cells as bushes. Given their high density and arrangement, neurons and glial resembled a thick forest, a seemingly impenetrable terrain of interacting cells mediating cognition and behavior.
Author: Olaf Sporns Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262304805 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 253
Book Description
A pioneer in the field outlines new empirical and computational approaches to mapping the neural connections of the human brain. Crucial to understanding how the brain works is connectivity, and the centerpiece of brain connectivity is the connectome, a comprehensive description of how neurons and brain regions are connected. In this book, Olaf Sporns surveys current efforts to chart these connections—to map the human connectome. He argues that the nascent field of connectomics has already begun to influence the way many neuroscientists collect, analyze, and think about their data. Moreover, the idea of mapping the connections of the human brain in their entirety has captured the imaginations of researchers across several disciplines including human cognition, brain and mental disorders, and complex systems and networks. Discovering the Human Connectome offers the first comprehensive overview of current empirical and computational approaches in this rapidly developing field.
Author: Nicholas T. Carnevale Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1139447831 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 399
Book Description
The authoritative reference on NEURON, the simulation environment for modeling biological neurons and neural networks that enjoys wide use in the experimental and computational neuroscience communities. This book shows how to use NEURON to construct and apply empirically based models. Written primarily for neuroscience investigators, teachers, and students, it assumes no previous knowledge of computer programming or numerical methods. Readers with a background in the physical sciences or mathematics, who have some knowledge about brain cells and circuits and are interested in computational modeling, will also find it helpful. The NEURON Book covers material that ranges from the inner workings of this program, to practical considerations involved in specifying the anatomical and biophysical properties that are to be represented in models. It uses a problem-solving approach, with many working examples that readers can try for themselves.
Author: Maxim I. Stamenov Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing ISBN: 9027297088 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 402
Book Description
The emergence of language, social intelligence, and tool development are what made homo sapiens sapiens differentiate itself from all other biological species in the world. The use of language and the management of social and instrumental skills imply an awareness of intention and the consideration that one faces another individual with an attitude analogical to that of one’s own. The metaphor of ‘mirror’ aptly comes to mind.Recent investigations have shown that the human ability to ‘mirror’ other’s actions originates in the brain at a much deeper level than phenomenal awareness. A new class of neurons has been discovered in the premotor area of the monkey brain: ‘mirror neurons’. Quite remarkably, they are tuned to fire to the enaction as well as observation of specific classes of behavior: fine manual actions and actions performed by mouth. They become activated independent of the agent, be it the self or a third person whose action is observed. The activation in mirror neurons is automatic and binds the observation and enaction of some behavior by the self or by the observed other. The peculiar first-to-third-person ‘intersubjectivity’ of the performance of mirror neurons and their surprising complementarity to the functioning of strategic communicative face-to-face (first-to-second person) interaction may shed new light on the functional architecture of conscious vs. unconscious mental processes and the relationship between behavioral and communicative action in monkeys, primates, and humans. The present volume discusses the nature of mirror neurons as presented by the research team of Prof. Giacomo Rizzolatti (University of Parma), who originally discovered them, and the implications to our understanding of the evolution of brain, mind and communicative interaction in non-human primates and man.(Series B)
Author: Robert Sylwester Publisher: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development ISBN: Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 182
Book Description
Provides an introduction to late twentieth-century scientific understanding of the development, organization, and operation of the brain, written especially for educational leaders, and suggests some broad educational applications that may be introduced in schools.
Author: Larry W. Swanson Publisher: Abrams ISBN: 1613129947 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 208
Book Description
At the crossroads of art and science, Beautiful Brain presents Nobel Laureate Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s contributions to neuroscience through his groundbreaking artistic brain imagery. Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852–1934) was the father of modern neuroscience and an exceptional artist. He devoted his life to the anatomy of the brain, the body’s most complex and mysterious organ. His superhuman feats of visualization, based on fanatically precise techniques and countless hours at the microscope, resulted in some of the most remarkable illustrations in the history of science. Beautiful Brain presents a selection of his exquisite drawings of brain cells, brain regions, and neural circuits with accessible descriptive commentary. These drawings are explored from multiple perspectives: Larry W. Swanson describes Cajal’s contributions to neuroscience; Lyndel King and Eric Himmel explore his artistic roots and achievement; Eric A. Newman provides commentary on the drawings; and Janet M. Dubinsky describes contemporary neuroscience imaging techniques. This book is the companion to a traveling exhibition opening at the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis in February 2017, marking the first time that many of these works, which are housed at the Instituto Cajal in Madrid, have been seen outside of Spain. Beautiful Brain showcases Cajal’s contributions to neuroscience, explores his artistic roots and achievement, and looks at his work in relation to contemporary neuroscience imaging, appealing to general readers and professionals alike.
Author: National Academy of Sciences
Author: National Academy of Sciences
Author: National Research Council
Author: Gregory Hickok
Author: Carol Ann Paul
Author: Javier DeFelipe
Author: Olaf Sporns
Author: Nicholas T. Carnevale
Author: Maxim I. Stamenov
Author: Robert Sylwester
Author: Larry W. Swanson