This book represents a unique and elaborate exposition of the neural organization of language, memory, and spatial perception in a wide variety of species including humans, bees, fish, rodents, and monkeys. The editors have united the comparative approach with its emphasis on evolutionary determinants of behavior, the neurobiological approach with its emphasis on the neural determinants of behavior, and the cognitive approach with its emphasis on understanding higher-order mental functions. The combination of these three approaches provides an unusual look at the neurobiology of comparative cognition, and should stimulate increased investigations in this field and related disciplines.
"Neurobiology of Cognition and Behavior" is a cognitive neuroscience that maps cognitive/behavioral units with anatomical regions in the human brain. The brain-behavioral associations are based on functional neuroimaging combined with lesion studies. The findings will be used to explain differences in clinical syndromes with videos of patients included.
This comprehensive volume illustrates why an understanding of animal intelligence is essential in disclosing the nature of minds other than our own making it a fascinating volume for anyone curious about the state of modern comparative cognition.
This book analyzes the psychological mechanisms critical to animal communication. The topics covered range from single neurons to broad-scale phylogenetic patterns, shedding new light on the sensory, perceptual, and cognitive processes that underlie the communicative behaviors of signalers and receivers alike. In so doing, the contributing authors collectively integrate research questions and methods from behavioral ecology, cognitive ethology, comparative psychology, evolutionary biology, sensory ecology, and neuroscience. No less broad is the volume’s taxonomic coverage, which spans bees to blackbirds to baboons. The ultimate goal of the book is to stimulate additional research into the diversity and evolution of the psychological mechanisms that make animal communication possible.
This handbook lays out the science behind how animals think, remember, create, calculate, and remember. It provides concise overviews on major areas of study such as animal communication and language, memory and recall, social cognition, social learning and teaching, numerical and quantitative abilities, as well as innovation and problem solving. The chapters also explore more nuanced topics in greater detail, showing how the research was conducted and how it can be used for further study. The authors range from academics working in renowned university departments to those from research institutions and practitioners in zoos. The volume encompasses a wide variety of species, ensuring the breadth of the field is explored.
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."
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.”
First published in 1984. With this volume we initiate a series of books in comparative cognition and neuroscience. The presentations at the Harry Frank Guggenheim Conference, June 2-4, 1982, out of which the present volume grew, showed that this field of enquiry into cognitive functioning and its neural basis had reached maturity.
