Kirjahaku

Brains as Engines of Association tackles a fundamental question in neuroscience: what is the operating principle of the human brain? While a similar question has been asked and answered for virtually every other human organ during the last few centuries, how the brain operates has remained a central challenge in biology. Based on evidence derived from vision, audition, speech and music--much of it based on the author's own work over the last twenty years--Brains as Engines of Association argues that brains operate wholly on the basis of trial and error experience, encoded in neural circuitry over evolutionary and individual time. This concept of neural function runs counter to current concepts that view the brain as a computing machine, and research programs based on the idea that the only way to answer such questions is by reconstructing the connectivity of brains in their entirety. This view also implies that the best way to understand the details of brain function is to recapitulate their history using artificial neural networks. While this viewpoint has received support in the last few years from work showing that computers can win complex games, the brain plays a much more complex game--the "game" of biological survival--which Purves concludes is based on trial-and-error experience.

Understanding the role of neural activity in the development of the brain has been a major concern of many modern neurobiologists. The reason is plain enough: since the world influences the brain by means of action potentials and synaptic potentials, activity must be the chief cause of the neural changes wrought by experience. This 1994 volume explores the hypothesis that neural activity generated by experience modulates the ongoing growth of the brain during maturation, thus sculpting in each of us a unique nervous system according to the events of our early life. Brain growth is considered at a macroscopic level by examining brain maps and their modular substructure, and at a cellular level by investigating the neuronal interactions that influence the formation and maintenance of these structures. The ways that experience influences the maturation of the brain at both macroscopic and microscopic levels are described, and the conventional wisdom is re-examined.

The major goal of developmental neurobiology is to understand how the nervous system is put together. A central theme that has emerged from research in this field over the last several decades is the crucial role of trophic interactions in neural assembly, and indeed throughout an animal's life. Trophic—which means nutritive—refers to long-term interdependencies between nerve cells and the cells they innervate.The theory of trophic effects presented in this book offers an explanation of how the vertebrate nervous system is related to—and regulated by—the body it serves. The theory rationalizes the nervous system's accommodation, throughout life, to the changing size and form of the body it tenants, indicating the way connections between nerve cells change in response to stimuli as diverse as growth, injury, experience, and natural selection.Dale Purves, a leading neurobiologist best known for his work on the formation and maintenance of synaptic connections, presents this theory within the historical setting of earlier ideas about neural organization—from Weiss's theory of functional reorganization to the chemoaffinity theory championed by Sperry. In addition to illuminating eighty years of work on trophic interactions, this book asks its own compelling questions: Are trophic interactions characteristic of all animals or only of those with complex nervous systems? Are trophic interactions related to learning? What does the trophic theory of neural connections imply about the currently fashionable view that the nervous system operates according to Darwinian principles?Purves lays the theoretical foundation for practical exploration of trophic interactions as they apply to neural connections, a pursuit that will help us understand how our own nervous systems generate change. The ideas in this book not only enrich neurobiology but also convey the profound relevance of neuroscience to other fields of life science.

The universality of musical tones has long fascinated philosophers, scientists, musicians, and ordinary listeners. Why do human beings worldwide find some tone combinations consonant and others dissonant? Why do we make music using only a small number of scales out of the billions that are possible? Why do differently organized scales elicit different emotions? Why are there so few notes in scales? In Music as Biology, Dale Purves argues that biology offers answers to these and other questions on which conventional music theory is silent.When people and animals vocalize, they generate tonal sounds—periodic pressure changes at the ear which, when combined, can be heard as melodies and harmonies. Human beings have evolved a sense of tonality, Purves explains, because of the behavioral advantages that arise from recognizing and attending to human voices. The result is subjective responses to tone combinations that are best understood in terms of their contribution to biological success over evolutionary and individual history. Purves summarizes evidence that the intervals defining Western and other scales are those with the greatest collective similarity to the human voice; that major and minor scales are heard as happy or sad because they mimic the subdued and excited speech of these emotional states; and that the character of a culture’s speech influences the tonal palette of its traditional music.Rethinking music theory in biological terms offers a new approach to centuries-long debates about the organization and impact of music.

Neuroscience is a comprehensive textbook created primarily for medical, premedical, and undergraduate students. In a single concise and approachable volume, the text guides students through the challenges and excitement of this rapidly changing field. The book's concise length and accessible writing are a successful combination that has proven to work equally well for medical students and in undergraduate neuroscience courses. NEW TO THIS EDITION Thoroughly revised and updated text * All chapters are fully updated to reflect current research * Substantial revisions have been made to: - Chapter 4, Ion Channels and Transporters - Chapter 6, Neurotransmitters and Their Receptors - Chapter 8, Synaptic Plasticity - ALL chapters in Unit IV, The Changing Brain - ALL chapters in Unit V, Complex Brain Functions Expanded full colour art * A completely new colour palette with digital enhancements. STUDENT SUPPLEMENTS Companion Website (sites.sinauer.com/neuroscience5e) The Neuroscience companion website features review and study tools to help students master the material presented in the neuroscience course. Access to the site is free of charge and requires no access code.The site includes: * Chapter Summaries: Concise overviews of the important topics covered in each chapter. * Animations: Detailed animations depict many of the key topics presented in the textbook. Topics such as synaptic transmission, resting membrane potential, information processing in the eye, the stretch reflex, and many others are presented in a dynamic manner that helps students visualize and better understand many of the complex processes of neuroscience. * Flashcards and Key Terms: Flashcard activities help students master the extensive vocabulary of neuroscience. Each chapter's set of flashcards includes all the key terms introduced in that chapter. Sylvius: An Interactive Atlas and Visual Glossary of Human Neuroanatomy S. Mark Williams, Leonard E. White, and Andrew C. Mace Sylvius provides a unique computer-based learning environment for exploring and understanding the structure of the human central nervous system. Sylvius features fully annotated surface views of the human brain, as well as interactive tools for dissecting the central nervous system and viewing fully annotated cross-sections of preserved specimens and living subjects imaged by magnetic resonance.Much more than a conventional atlas,Sylvius incorporates a comprehensive, visually rich, searchable database of more than 500 neuroanatomical terms that are concisely defined and visualized in photographs, magnetic resonance images, and illustrations fromthe main Neuroscience text. LECTURER SUPPLEMENTS (Only available for confirmed adopters of the textbook - see details below) Instructor's Resource Library The Neuroscience Instructor's Resource Library includes a variety of resources, including: *Textbook Figures and Tables: All the figures and tables from the textbook are provided in JPEG format (both high- and low-resolution), reformatted and relabelled for optimal readability. *PowerPoint(R) Presentations: A PowerPoint presentation that includes all figures and tables is included for each chapter, making it easy to add figures to your own presentations. *Atlas Images: All of the images from the book's Atlas of the Human Central Nervous System (which are from Sylvius) are included in PowerPoint format, for use in lecture. *Animations: All of the animations from the companion website are included for use in lecture and other course-related activities.*Quiz Questions: All of the questions from the new companion website's online quizzes are provided in Microsoft(R) Word(R) format. *Review Questions: A set of short-answer review questions is provided for each chapter of the textbook (Microsoft Word format), along with a list of chapter-specific key terms. Lecturers Supplements are available to confirmed adopters of the textbook. To request, please email [email protected] with the title and ISBN of the required supplement together with your academic details: Supplement requested ISBN Your name Your Job Title Your academic address Your academic email Module name Module start date Module student numbers

This book examines what seems to be the basic challenge in neuroscience today: understanding how experience generated by the human brain is related to the physical world we live in. The 25 short chapters present the argument and evidence that brains address this problem on a wholly trial and error basis. The goal is to encourage neuroscientists, computer scientists, philosophers, and other interested readers to consider this concept of neural function and its implications, not least of which is the conclusion that brains don’t “compute.”

This book examines what seems to be the basic challenge in neuroscience today: understanding how experience generated by the human brain is related to the physical world we live in. The 25 short chapters present the argument and evidence that brains address this problem on a wholly trial and error basis. The goal is to encourage neuroscientists, computer scientists, philosophers, and other interested readers to consider this concept of neural function and its implications, not least of which is the conclusion that brains don’t “compute.”

Dieses Buch untersucht die scheinbar grundlegende Herausforderung in der Neurowissenschaft von heute: zu verstehen, wie die vom menschlichen Gehirn erzeugte Erfahrung mit der physischen Welt, in der wir leben, in Beziehung steht. Die 25 kurzen Kapitel präsentieren das Argument und die Beweise, dass Gehirne dieses Problem auf einer rein trial-and-error-Basis angehen. Das Ziel ist es, Neurowissenschaftler, Informatiker, Philosophen und andere interessierte Leser dazu anzuregen, dieses Konzept der neuronalen Funktion und seine Implikationen zu hinterfragen. Eine der Schlussfolgerungen ist dabei, dass Gehirne nicht „rechnen“.