Handedness & Speech: Brain Plasticity & Evolution PDF Download

Author: Kenneth Provins
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0980815932
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
Reviews research on the origins of handedness in the context of Darwin's theory of evolution and considers the development of functional asymmetry of the brain for hand usage and speech as a result of plasticity of the nervous system.

Author: Bryan Kolb
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780805815207
Category : Brain
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
First Published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Author: Terrence W. Deacon
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393343022
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
"A work of enormous breadth, likely to pleasantly surprise both general readers and experts."—New York Times Book Review This revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic thinking: from the co-evolutionary exchange between language and brains over two million years of hominid evolution to the ethical repercussions that followed man's newfound access to other people's thoughts and emotions. Informing these insights is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes underlie the brain's development and function as well as its evolution. In contrast to much contemporary neuroscience that treats the brain as no more or less than a computer, Deacon provides a new clarity of vision into the mechanism of mind. It injects a renewed sense of adventure into the experience of being human.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309069882
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 610

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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: Robert M. Sapolsky
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143110918
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 801

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Book Description
New York Times bestseller • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • One of the Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year “It’s no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read.” —David P. Barash, The Wall Street Journal "It has my vote for science book of the year.” —Parul Sehgal, The New York Times "Immensely readable, often hilarious...Hands-down one of the best books I’ve read in years. I loved it." —Dina Temple-Raston, The Washington Post From the bestselling author of A Primate's Memoir and the forthcoming Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will comes a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do? Behave is one of the most dazzling tours d’horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted. Moving across a range of disciplines, Sapolsky—a neuroscientist and primatologist—uncovers the hidden story of our actions. Undertaking some of our thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, and war and peace, Behave is a towering achievement—a majestic synthesis of cutting-edge research and a heroic exploration of why we ultimately do the things we do . . . for good and for ill.

Author: Marian Annett
Publisher: Psychology Press (UK)
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Author: John C. Eccles
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134968353
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
In this book, Nobel Prize-winner, Sir John Eccles, tells the story of how man came to be as he is, not only as an animal at the end of the hominid evolutionary line, but also as a human being possessed of reflective consciousness.

Author: Henry Kennedy
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319277774
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
This book has brought together leading investigators who work in the new arena of brain connectomics. This includes ‘macro-connectome’ efforts to comprehensively chart long-distance pathways and functional networks; ‘micro-connectome’ efforts to identify every neuron, axon, dendrite, synapse, and glial process within restricted brain regions; and ‘meso-connectome’ efforts to systematically map both local and long-distance connections using anatomical tracers. This book highlights cutting-edge methods that can accelerate progress in elucidating static ‘hard-wired’ circuits of the brain as well as dynamic interactions that are vital for brain function. The power of connectomic approaches in characterizing abnormal circuits in the many brain disorders that afflict humankind is considered. Experts in computational neuroscience and network theory provide perspectives needed for synthesizing across different scales in space and time. Altogether, this book provides an integrated view of the challenges and opportunities in deciphering brain circuits in health and disease.

Author: Caroline Lyon
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1846287790
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
Current Work and Open Problems: A Road-Map for Research into the Emergence of Communication and Language Chrystopher L. Nehaniv, Caroline Lyon, and Angelo Cangelosi 1.1. Introduction This book brings together work on the emergence of communication and language from researchers working in a broad array of scientific paradigms in North America, Europe, Japan and Africa. We hope that its multi-disciplinary approach will encourage cross-fertilization and promote further advances in this active research field. The volume draws on diverse disciplines, including linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, ethology, anthropology, robotics, and computer science. Computational simulations of the emergence of phenomena associated with communication and language play a key role in illuminating some of the most significant issues, and the renewed scientific interest in language emergence has benefited greatly from research in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science. The book starts with this road map chapter by the editors, pointing to the ways in which disparate disciplines can inform and stimulate each other. It examines the role of simulations as a novel way to express theories in science, and their contribution to the development of a new approach to the study of the emergence of communication and language. We will also discuss and collect the most promising directions and grand challenge problems for future research. The present volume, is organized into three parts: I. Empirical Investi- tions on Human Language, II. Synthesis and Simulation of Communication and Language in Artificial Systems, and III. Insights from Animal Communication.

Author: Gianfranco Denes
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1317909941
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Neural Plasticity Across the Lifespan reviews the recent scientific developments which are transforming our understanding of the human brain. For many years it was thought that modifications to the structural and functional organization of the brain were limited to a short early period of life, "the critical period", and, in adults, to the memory system. Recent research suggests that on the contrary we should see the human brain as a flexible structure, which adapts and modifies in response to learning, sensory experience, age and disease. The book provides an integrated overview of contemporary research on neural plasticity - the process by which the brain can change in structure and function to cope with new experiences and react to the effects of acquired damage or sensory deprivation. It reviews data on plasticity in the developing brain, looking at both typical and atypical development, alongside clinical and observational research on the adult population. It covers a number of key topics, including: different forms of neural plasticity factors affecting neural plasticity (ageing and gender), neural plasticity in language acquisition, memory and bodily self-consciousness mechanisms of repair – plasticity following sensory deprivation and acquired brain damage. This is an accessible overview of an emerging field of research which has fundamental implications for how we perceive our potential to change throughout our lives. It will be essential reading for all students of cognitive development, cognitive neuroscience and lifespan development.