Roger Sperry has made outstanding contributions to neuroscience. Here, he and over twenty of his contemporaries, review 50 years of both his work and their own in the context of Sperry's contribution to their fields. Sperry's challenging theories are still much alive in brain science, cognitive psychology and the philosophy of the mind.
While embracing the now classical theories of McCulloch and Pitts, the neuroidal model also accommodates state information in the neurons, more flexible timing mechanisms, a variety of assumptions about interconnectivity, and the possibility that different brain areas perform specialized functions. Programmable so that a wide range of algorithmic theories can be described and evaluated, the model provides a concrete computational language and a unified framework in which diverse cognitive phenomena - such as memory, learning, and reasoning - can be systematically and concurrently analyzed. Requiring no specialized knowledge, Circuits of the Mind masterfully offers an exciting new approach to brain science for students and researchers in computer science, neurobiology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science.
This book covers recent advances in the understanding of brain structure, function and disorders based on the fundamental principles of physics. It covers a broad range of physical phenomena occurring in the brain circuits for perception, cognition, emotion and action, representing the building blocks of the mind. It provides novel insights into the devastating brain disorders of the mind such as schizophrenia, dementia, autism, aging or addictions, as well as into the new devices for brain repair. The book is aimed at basic researchers in the fields of neuroscience, physics, biophysics and clinicians in the fields of neurology, neurosurgery, psychology, psychiatry.
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."
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.
This volume explores the scientific frontiers and leading edges of research across the fields of anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, sociology, history, business, education, geography, law, and psychiatry, as well as the newer, more specialized areas of artificial intelligence, child development, cognitive science, communications, demography, linguistics, and management and decision science. It includes recommendations concerning new resources, facilities, and programs that may be needed over the next several years to ensure rapid progress and provide a high level of returns to basic research.
How does your mind work? How does your brain give rise to your mind? These are questions that all of us have wondered about at some point in our lives, if only because everything that we know is experienced in our minds. They are also very hard questions to answer. After all, how can a mind understand itself? How can you understand something as complex as the tool that is being used to understand it? This book provides an introductory and self-contained description of some of the exciting answers to these questions that modern theories of mind and brain have recently proposed. Stephen Grossberg is broadly acknowledged to be the most important pioneer and current research leader who has, for the past 50 years, modelled how brains give rise to minds, notably how neural circuits in multiple brain regions interact together to generate psychological functions. This research has led to a unified understanding of how, where, and why our brains can consciously see, hear, feel, and know about the world, and effectively plan and act within it. The work embodies revolutionary Principia of Mind that clarify how autonomous adaptive intelligence is achieved. It provides mechanistic explanations of multiple mental disorders, including symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, autism, amnesia, and sleep disorders; biological bases of morality and religion, including why our brains are biased towards the good so that values are not purely relative; perplexing aspects of the human condition, including why many decisions are irrational and self-defeating despite evolution's selection of adaptive behaviors; and solutions to large-scale problems in machine learning, technology, and Artificial Intelligence that provide a blueprint for autonomously intelligent algorithms and robots. Because brains embody a universal developmental code, unifying insights also emerge about shared laws that are found in all living cellular tissues, from the most primitive to the most advanced, notably how the laws governing networks of interacting cells support developmental and learning processes in all species. The fundamental brain design principles of complementarity, uncertainty, and resonance that Grossberg has discovered also reflect laws of the physical world with which our brains ceaselessly interact, and which enable our brains to incrementally learn to understand those laws, thereby enabling humans to understand the world scientifically. Accessibly written, and lavishly illustrated, Conscious Mind/Resonant Brain is the magnum opus of one of the most influential scientists of the past 50 years, and will appeal to a broad readership across the sciences and humanities.
A new vision of the brain as a fully integrated, networked organ. Popular neuroscience accounts often focus on specific mind-brain aspects like addiction, cognition, or memory, but The Entangled Brain tackles a much bigger question: What kind of object is the brain? Neuroscientist Luiz Pessoa describes the brain as a highly networked, interconnected system that cannot be neatly decomposed into a set of independent parts. One can’t point to the brain and say, “This is where emotion happens” (or any other mental faculty). Pessoa argues that only by understanding how large-scale neural circuits combine multiple and diverse signals can we truly appreciate how the brain supports the mind. Presenting the brain as an integrated organ and drawing on neuroscience, computation, mathematics, systems theory, and evolution, The Entangled Brain explains how brain functions result from cross-cutting brain processing, not the function of segregated areas. Parts of the brain work in a coordinated fashion across large-scale distributed networks in which disparate parts of the cortex and the subcortex work simultaneously to bring about behaviors. Pessoa intuitively explains the concepts needed to formalize this idea of the brain as a complex system and how to unleash powerful understandings built with “collective computations.”
Neuroscience has made phenomenal advances over the past 50 years and the pace of discovery continues to accelerate. On June 25, 2008, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders hosted more than 70 of the leading neuroscientists in the world, for a workshop titled "From Molecules to Minds: Challenges for the 21st Century." The objective of the workshop was to explore a set of common goals or "Grand Challenges" posed by participants that could inspire and rally both the scientific community and the public to consider the possibilities for neuroscience in the 21st century. The progress of the past in combination with new tools and techniques, such as neuroimaging and molecular biology, has positioned neuroscience on the cusp of even greater transformational progress in our understanding of the brain and how its inner workings result in mental activity. This workshop summary highlights the important issues and challenges facing the field of neuroscience as presented to those in attendance at the workshop, as well as the subsequent discussion that resulted. As a result, three overarching Grand Challenges emerged: How does the brain work and produce mental activity? How does physical activity in the brain give rise to thought, emotion, and behavior? How does the interplay of biology and experience shape our brains and make us who we are today? How do we keep our brains healthy? How do we protect, restore, or enhance the functioning of our brains as we age?
