The Myth of Mirror Neurons: The Real Neuroscience of Communication and Cognition

The Myth of Mirror Neurons: The Real Neuroscience of Communication and Cognition

Author: Gregory Hickok

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2014-08-18

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 0393244164

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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.


The Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology of Stroke

The Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology of Stroke

Author: Olivier Godefroy

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2007-01-18

Total Pages: 637

ISBN-13: 1139461893

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The care of stroke patients has changed dramatically. As well as improvements in the emergency care of the condition, there have been marked advances in our understanding, management and rehabilitation of residual deficits. This book is about the care of stroke patients, focusing on behavioural and cognitive problems. It provides a comprehensive review of the field covering the diagnostic value of these conditions, in the acute and later phases, their requirements in terms of treatment and management and the likelihood and significance of long-term disability. This book will appeal to all clinicians involved in the care of stroke patients, as well as to neuropsychologists, other rehabilitation therapists and research scientists investigating the underlying neuroscience.


Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation

Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation

Author: Richard L. Harvey, MD

Publisher: Demos Medical Publishing

Published: 2008-11-20

Total Pages: 817

ISBN-13: 1935281054

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A Doody's Core Title 2012 Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation is the new gold standard comprehensive guide to the management of stroke patients. Beginning with detailed information on risk factors, epidemiology, prevention, and neurophysiology, the book details the acute and long-term treatment of all stroke-related impairments and complications. Additional sections discuss psychological issues, outcomes, community reintegration, and new research. Written by dozens of acknowledged leaders in the field, and containing hundreds of tables, graphs, and photographic images, Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation features: The first full-length discussion of the most commonly-encountered component of neurorehabilitation Multi-specialty coverage of issues in rehabilitation, neurology, PT, OT, speech therapy, and nursing Focus on therapeutic management of stroke related impairments and complications An international perspective from dozens of foremost authorities on stroke Cutting edge, practical information on new developments and research trends Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation is a valuable reference for clinicians and academics in rehabilitation and neurology, and professionals in all disciplines who serve the needs of stroke survivors.


Textbook of Stroke Medicine

Textbook of Stroke Medicine

Author: Michael Brainin

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-09-11

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 1107047498

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Fully revised throughout, the new edition of this concise textbook is aimed at doctors preparing to specialize in stroke care.


Brain Neurotrauma

Brain Neurotrauma

Author: Firas H. Kobeissy

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2015-02-25

Total Pages: 718

ISBN-13: 1466565993

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With the contribution from more than one hundred CNS neurotrauma experts, this book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account on the latest developments in the area of neurotrauma including biomarker studies, experimental models, diagnostic methods, and neurotherapeutic intervention strategies in brain injury research. It discusses neurotrauma mechanisms, biomarker discovery, and neurocognitive and neurobehavioral deficits. Also included are medical interventions and recent neurotherapeutics used in the area of brain injury that have been translated to the area of rehabilitation research. In addition, a section is devoted to models of milder CNS injury, including sports injuries.


Brain Repair After Stroke

Brain Repair After Stroke

Author: Steven C. Cramer

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010-10-28

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 1139490656

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Increasing evidence identifies the possibility of restoring function to the damaged brain via exogenous therapies. One major target for these advances is stroke, where most patients can be left with significant disability. Treatments have the potential to improve the victim's quality of life significantly and reduce the time and expense of rehabilitation. Brain Repair After Stroke reviews the biology of spontaneous brain repair after stroke in animal models and in humans. Detailed chapters cover the many forms of therapy being explored to promote brain repair and consider clinical trial issues in this context. This book provides a summary of the neurobiology of innate and treatment-induced repair mechanisms after hypoxia and reviews the state of the art for human therapeutics in relation to promoting behavioral recovery after stroke. Essential reading for stroke physicians, neurologists, rehabilitation physicians and neuropsychologists.


The Neurophysiological Foundations of Mental and Motor Imagery

The Neurophysiological Foundations of Mental and Motor Imagery

Author: Aymeric Guillot

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-01-14

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 0199546258

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"This book, the first of its kind, examines three main aspects of mental imagery. Providing a state of the art review of this field of research, along with in-depth reviews, meta-analyses, and research syntheses, this book will be important for those in the fields of cognitive neuroscience, physiology, and rehabilitation." --Book Jacket.


Movement Control

Movement Control

Author: Paul Cordo

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1994-05-27

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 9780521456074

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Movement is arguably the most fundamental and important function of the nervous system. Purposive movement requires the coordination of actions within many areas of the cerebral cortex, cerebellum, basal ganglia, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves and sensory receptors, which together must control a highly complex biomechanical apparatus made up of the skeleton and muscles. Beginning at the level of biomechanics and spinal reflexes and proceeding upward to brain structures in the cerebellum, brainstem and cerebral cortex, the chapters in this book highlight the important issues in movement control. Commentaries provide a balanced treatment of the articles that have been written by experts in a variety of areas concerned with movement, including behaviour, physiology, robotics, and mathematics.


Stroke Syndromes, 3ed

Stroke Syndromes, 3ed

Author: Louis R. Caplan

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-07-12

Total Pages: 633

ISBN-13: 1107018862

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A comprehensive survey of dysfunction due to stroke, this revised edition remains the definitive guide to stroke patterns and syndromes.


Imaging Neuroscience

Imaging Neuroscience

Author: Terry Jones

Publisher:

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780198526964

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This issue forms part of a series of reviews on selected health topics in fields where significant developments are occurring. It should prove a useful reference source and allows those working in other specialities and younger clinicians and scientists to update their knowledge in important and well-defined subject areas.