Author: William H. Calvin Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 9780262531542 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 266
Book Description
The Cerebral Code is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes could operate in the brain to shape mental images in only seconds, starting with shuffled memories no better than the jumble of our nighttime dreams, but evolving into something of quality, such as a sentence to speak aloud. Jung said that dreaming goes on continuously but you can't see it when you are awake, just as you can't see the stars in the daylight because it is too bright. Calvin's is a theory for what goes on, hidden from view by the glare of waking mental operations, that produces our peculiarly human type of consciousness with its versatile intelligence. As Piaget emphasized in 1929, intelligence is what we use when we don't know what to do, when we have to grope rather than using a standard response. Calvin tackles a mechanism for doing this exploration and improvement offline, as we think before we act or practice the art of good guessing. Surprisingly, the subtitle's mosaics of the mind is not a literary metaphor. For the first time, it is a description of a mechanism of what appears to be an appropriate level of explanation for many mental phenomena, that of hexagonal mosaics of electrical activity that compete for territory in the association cortex of the brain. This two-dimensional mosaic is predicted to grow and dissolve much as the sugar crystals do in the bottom of a supersaturated glass of iced tea. A Bradford Book
Author: Johannes Bruder Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP ISBN: 0773559701 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 177
Book Description
As the second decade of the twenty-first century draws to a close, the cultural, social, and economic effects of artificial intelligence are becoming ever more apparent. Despite their long-intertwined histories, the fields of neuroscience and artificial intelligence research are notoriously divided. In Cognitive Code Johannes Bruder argues that seemingly incompatible scales of intelligence – the brain and the planet – are now intimately linked through neuroscience-inspired AI and computational cognitive neuroscience. Building on ethnographic fieldwork in brain imaging labs in the United Kingdom and Switzerland, alongside analyses of historical and contemporary literature, Cognitive Code examines how contemporary research on the brain makes routine use of engineering epistemologies and practices. Bruder elaborates on how the question of mimicking human cognition and thought on the scale of computer chips and circuits has gradually evolved into a comprehensive restructuring of the world through "smart" infrastructures. The brain, traditionally treated as a discrete object that thinks, is becoming part of the larger thinking network we now know as "the Cloud." The author traces a recent shift in the goals of brain imaging to show that the introduction of novel statistical and computational techniques has upset traditional paradigms and disentangled cognition from its biological substrate. Investigating understandings of intelligence from the micro to the macro, Cognitive Code explains how the future of human psychology is increasingly determined by engineering and design.
Author: G. Buzsaki Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 3642851487 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 308
Book Description
Temporal coding in the brain documents a revolution now occurring in the neurosciences. How does parallel processing of information bind together the complex nature of the outer and our inner worlds? Do intrinsic oscillations and transient cooperative states of neurons represent the physiological basis of cognitive and motor functions of the brain? Some answers to these challenging issues are provided in this book by leading world experts of brain function. A common denominator of the works presented in this volume is the nature and mechanisms of neuronal cooperation in the temporal domain. The topics range from simple organisms to the human brain. The volume is intended for investigators and graduate students in neurophysiology, cognitive neuroscience, neural computation and neurology.
Author: Yossi Chalamish Publisher: Watkins Media Limited ISBN: 1786788829 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 253
Book Description
This practical and accessible book empowers readers to access their brain’s full potential, featuring cutting-edge neuroscience research presented for the first time. This book introduces the new and fascinating field of Clinical Neuroscience, which argues that the brain has the power to prevent and treat a variety of neurobiological disorders, from autism to attention deficit disorder. With ground-breaking neuroscience research presented in an accessible, easy-to-understand way The Brain Code teaches readers how to get the most from their brains, how to access their peak cognitive function. Each chapter will look at different functions of the brain: how can we regulate and control our emotions and thereby promote optimal thinking and behaviour improving creative thinking through some simple tried-and-tested tricks efficient ways to use memory and thinking to improve our learning ability – a mandatory chapter for every student! steps to take to promote peaceful sleep recent brain research describing natural ways to deal with fears and anxieties look behind the scenes at a mind in love and understand how the knowledge can be harnessed to manage more successful relationships Dr Yossi Chalamish uses his expertise in neuroscience to provide contemporary research on how each brain function works, featuring case studies from his clinical experience that illustrate its function, and practical exercises and tools to improve your cognitive abilities in your everyday life.
Author: Thomas P. Naidich, MD Publisher: Elsevier Health Sciences ISBN: 1416050094 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 1234
Book Description
Imaging of the Brain provides the advanced expertise you need to overcome the toughest diagnostic challenges in neuroradiology. Combining the rich visual guidance of an atlas with the comprehensive, in-depth coverage of a definitive reference, this significant new work in the Expert Radiology series covers every aspect of brain imaging, equipping you to make optimal use of the latest diagnostic modalities. Compare your clinical findings to more than 2,800 digital-quality images of both radiographic images and cutting edge modalities such as MR, multislice CT, ultrasonography, and nuclear medicine, including PET and PET/CT. Visualize relevant anatomy more easily thanks to full-color anatomic views throughout. Choose the most effective diagnostic options, with an emphasis on cost-effective imaging. Apply the expertise of a diverse group of world authorities from around the globe on imaging of the brain. Use this reference alongside Dr. Naidich's Imaging of the Spine for complementary coverage of all aspects of neuroimaging. Access the complete contents of Imaging of the Brain online and download all the images at www.expertconsult.com.
Author: Norman D. Cook Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 0429954832 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 272
Book Description
Originally published in 1986, this stimulating and unorthodox book integrates the major findings of hemispheric research with the larger questions of how the brain stores and transmits information – the ‘brain code’. Norman Cook emphasizes how the two cerebral hemispheres communicate information over the corpus callosum, the largest single nerve tract of the human brain. Excitatory mechanisms are involved in the duplication of information between the hemispheres; in contrast, inhibitory mechanisms are implicated in the production of hemispheric asymmetries and, crucially, in high-level cognitive phenomena such as the right hemisphere’s role in providing the ‘context’ within which left hemispheric verbal information is placed. These callosal mechanisms of information transfer are not only fundamental to the brain code; they are the simplest and most easily demonstrated ways in which the neocortex ‘talks to itself’. The Brain Code demonstrates how popular topics within psychology at the time, such as laterality, hemisphere differences and the psychology of left and right, are central to further progress in understanding the human brain. This book provides stimulating reading for students of psychology, artificial intelligence and neurophysiology, as well as anyone interested in the broader question of how the brain works.
Author: William H. Calvin Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 9780262531986 Category : Brain Languages : en Pages : 318
Book Description
A neuroscientist and a linguist show how evolution could have given rise to structured language. A machine for language? Certainly, say the neurophysiologists, busy studying the language specializations of the human brain and trying to identify their evolutionary antecedents. Linguists such as Noam Chomsky talk about machinelike "modules" in the brain for syntax, arguing that language is more an instinct (a complex behavior triggered by simple environmental stimuli) than an acquired skill like riding a bicycle. But structured language presents the same evolutionary problems as feathered forelimbs for flight: you need a lot of specializations to fly even a little bit. How do you get them, if evolution has no foresight and the intermediate stages do not have intermediate payoffs? Some say that the Darwinian scheme for gradual species self-improvement cannot explain our most valued human capability, the one that sets us so far above the apes, language itself. William Calvin and Derek Bickerton suggest that other evolutionary developments, not directly related to language, allowed language to evolve in a way that eventually promoted a Chomskian syntax. They compare these intermediate behaviors to the curb-cuts originally intended for wheelchair users. Their usefulness was soon discovered by users of strollers, shopping carts, rollerblades, and so on. The authors argue that reciprocal altruism and ballistic movement planning were "curb-cuts" that indirectly promoted the formation of structured language. Written in the form of a dialogue set in Bellagio, Italy, Lingua ex Machina presents an engaging challenge to those who view the human capacity for language as a winner-take-all war between Chomsky and Darwin.
Author: Paul Levinson Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 9780812567755 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 320
Book Description
Levinson, acclaimed short fiction writer and president of the Science Fiction Writers of America, has penned his first novel--about a forensic detective who is caught in a struggle that dates all the way back to the dawn of humanity on Earth. Unless he can unravel the genetic puzzle of the Silk Code, he'll die.
Author: William H. Calvin
Author: William H. Calvin
Author: Johannes Bruder
Author: G. Buzsaki
Author: William H. Calvin
Author: Yossi Chalamish
Author: Thomas P. Naidich, MD
Author: Norman D. Cook
Author: William H. Calvin
Author: Paul Levinson