This title marks the emergence of a third broad perspective in neuroscience. This perspective emphasizes the functions that emerge through the coaction and interaction of conspecifics and the commonality and differences across social species and superorganismal structures.
This title is a collection of interdisciplinary research from contributors including both philosophers and neuroscientists. Topics covered include the neurobiology of learning and memory perception and sensation, neurocomputational modelling neuroanatomy, neuroethics, and neurology and clinical neuropsychology.
A rich source of authoritative information that supports reading and study in the field of cognitive neuroscience, this two-volume handbook reviews the current state-of-the-science in all major areas of the field.
This handbook provides a comprehensive review of social cognition, ranging from its history and core research areas to its relationships with other fields. The 43 chapters included are written by eminent researchers in the field of social cognition, and are designed to be understandable and informative to readers with a wide range of backgrounds.
While some social scientists may argue that we have always been networked, the increased visibility of networks today across economic, political, and social domains can hardly be disputed. Social networks fundamentally shape our lives and social network analysis has become a vibrant, interdisciplinary field of research. In The Oxford Handbook of Social Networks, Ryan Light and James Moody have gathered forty leading scholars in sociology, archaeology, economics, statistics, and information science, among others, to provide an overview of the theory, methods, and contributions in the field of social networks. Each of the thirty-three chapters in this Handbook moves through the basics of social network analysis aimed at those seeking an introduction to advanced and novel approaches to modeling social networks statistically. They cover both a succinct background to, and future directions for, distinctive approaches to analyzing social networks. The first section of the volume consists of theoretical and methodological approaches to social networks, such as visualization and network analysis, statistical approaches to networks, and network dynamics. Chapters in the second section outline how network perspectives have contributed substantively across numerous fields, including public health, political analysis, and organizational studies. Despite the rapid spread of interest in social network analysis, few volumes capture the state-of-the-art theory, methods, and substantive contributions featured in this volume. This Handbook therefore offers a valuable resource for graduate students and faculty new to networks looking to learn new approaches, scholars interested in an overview of the field, and network analysts looking to expand their skills or substantive areas of research.
The past two decades have seen unparalleled developments in our knowledge of the brain and mind. However, these advances have forced us to confront head-on some significant ethical issues regarding our application of this information in the real world- whether using brain images to establish guilt within a court of law, or developing drugs to enhance cognition. Historically, any consideration of the ethical, legal, and social implications of emerging technologies in science and medicine has lagged behind the discovery of the technology itself. These delays have caused problems in the acceptability and potential applications of biomedical advances and posed significant problems for the scientific community and the public alike - for example in the case of genetic screening and human cloning. The field of Neuroethics aims to proactively anticipate ethical, legal and social issues at the intersection of neuroscience and ethics, raising questions about what the brain tells us about ourselves, whether the information is what people want or ought to know, and how best to communicate it. A landmark in the academic literature, the Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics presents a pioneering review of a topic central to the sciences and humanities. It presents a range of chapters considering key issues, discussion, and debate at the intersection of brain and ethics. The handbook contains more than 50 chapters by leaders from around the world and a broad range of sectors of academia and clinical practice spanning the neurosciences, medical sciences and humanities and law. The book focuses on and provides a platform for dialogue of what neuroscience can do, what we might expect neuroscience will do, and what neuroscience ought to do. The major themes include: consciousness and intention; responsibility and determinism; mind and body; neurotechnology; ageing and dementia; law and public policy; and science, society and international perspectives. Tackling some of the most significant ethical issues that face us now and will continue to do so over the coming decades, The Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics will be an essential resource for the field of neuroethics for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, basic scientists in the neurosciences and psychology, scholars in humanities and law, as well as physicians practising in the areas of primary care in neurological medicine.
The Oxford Handbook of the Self explores a fascinating diversity of questions about our understanding of self from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, ethics, psychology, neuroscience, psychopathology, narrative, and postmodern theories.
Invertebrates have proven to be extremely useful model systems for gaining insights into the neural and molecular mechanisms of sensory processing, motor control and higher functions such as feeding behavior, learning and memory, navigation, and social behavior. A major factor in their enormous contributions to neuroscience is the relative simplicity of invertebrate nervous systems. In addition, some invertebrates, primarily the molluscs, have large cells, which allow analyses to take place at the level of individually identified neurons. Individual neurons can be surgically removed and assayed for expression of membrane channels, levels of second messengers, protein phosphorylation, and RNA and protein synthesis. Moreover, peptides and nucleotides can be injected into individual neurons. Other invertebrate model systems such as Drosophila and Caenorhabditis elegans offer tremendous advantages for obtaining insights into the neuronal bases of behavior through the application of genetic approaches. The Oxford Handbook of Invertebrate Neurobiology reviews the many neurobiological principles that have emerged from invertebrate analyses, such as motor pattern generation, mechanisms of synaptic transmission, and learning and memory. It also covers general features of the neurobiology of invertebrate circadian rhythms, development, and regeneration and reproduction. Some neurobiological phenomena are species-specific and diverse, especially in the domain of the neuronal control of locomotion and camouflage. Thus, separate chapters are provided on the control of swimming in annelids, crustaea and molluscs, locomotion in hexapods, and camouflage in cephalopods. Unique features of the handbook include chapters that review social behavior and intentionality in invertebrates. A chapter is devoted to summarizing past contributions of invertebrates to the understanding of nervous systems and identifying areas for future studies that will continue to advance that understanding.
The field of social cognitive neuroscience has captured the attention of many researchers during the past ten years. Much of the impetus for this new field came from the development of functional neuroimaging methods that made it possible to unobtrusively measure brain activation over time. Using these methods over the last 30 years has allowed psychologists to move from simple validation questions -- would flashing stimuli activate the visual cortex -- to those about the functional specialization of brain regions-- are there regions in the inferior temporal cortex dedicated to face processing-- to questions that, just a decade ago, would have been considered to be intractable at such a level of analysis. These so-called "intractable" questions are the focus of the chapters in this book, which introduces social cognitive neuroscience research addressing questions of fundamental importance to social psychology: How do we understand and represent other people? How do we represent social groups? How do we regulate our emotions and socially undesirable responses? This book also presents innovative combinations of multiple methodologies, including behavioral experiments, computer modeling, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) experiments, Event-Related Potential (ERP) experiments, and brain lesion studies. It is divided into four sections. The first three sections present the latest research on, respectively, understanding and representing other people, representing social groups, and the interplay of cognition and emotion in social regulation. In the fourth section, contributors step back and consider a range of novel topics that have emerged in the context of social neuroscience research: understanding social exclusion as pain, deconstructing our moral intuitions, understanding cooperative exchanges with other agents, and the effect of aging on brain function and its implications for well-being. Taken together, these chapters provide a rich introduction to an exciting, rapidly developing and expanding field that promises a richer and deeper understanding of the social mind.
Recent years have seen an explosion of research into the physiological and neural bases of social behavior. This state-of-the science handbook is unique in approaching the topic from a developmental perspective. Exploring the dynamic relationship between biology and social behavior from infancy through adolescence, leading investigators discuss key processes in typical and atypical development. Chapters address emotion, motivation, person perception, interpersonal relationships, developmental disorders, and psychopathology. The volume sheds light on how complex social abilities emerge from basic brain circuits, whether there are elements of social behavior that are "hard wired" in the brain, and the impact of early experiences. Illustrations include 8 color plates.