The Neural Basis of Navigation

The Neural Basis of Navigation PDF Author: Patricia E. Sharp
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461508878
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Since the appearance of the John O'Keefe and Lynn Nadel book in which they proposed that the hippocampus provides an abstract, internal representation of the animal's environment, considerable conceptual progress in the area of navigational information processing has been achieved. The purpose of the current work is to consolidate recent data and conceptual insights related to navigational insight processing in a format useful to both practitioners and advanced students in neuroscience.

The Neural Basis of Navigation

The Neural Basis of Navigation PDF Author: Patricia E. Sharp
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461508878
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Since the appearance of the John O'Keefe and Lynn Nadel book in which they proposed that the hippocampus provides an abstract, internal representation of the animal's environment, considerable conceptual progress in the area of navigational information processing has been achieved. The purpose of the current work is to consolidate recent data and conceptual insights related to navigational insight processing in a format useful to both practitioners and advanced students in neuroscience.

Behavioural Neuroscience

Behavioural Neuroscience PDF Author: Seán Commins
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107104505
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
A visually engaging explanation of the neural process underlying various behaviours in species ranging from the simplest organisms to humans.

Human Spatial Navigation

Human Spatial Navigation PDF Author: Arne Ekstrom
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691171742
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
The first book to comprehensively explore the cognitive foundations of human spatial navigation Humans possess a range of navigation and orientation abilities, from the ordinary to the extraordinary. All of us must move from one location to the next, following habitual routes and avoiding getting lost. While there is more to learn about how the brain underlies our ability to navigate, neuroscience and psychology have begun to converge on some important answers. In Human Spatial Navigation, four leading experts tackle fundamental and unique issues to produce the first book-length investigation into this subject. Opening with the vivid story of Puluwat sailors who navigate in the open ocean with no mechanical aids, the authors begin by dissecting the behavioral basis of human spatial navigation. They then focus on its neural basis, describing neural recordings, brain imaging experiments, and patient studies. Recent advances give unprecedented insights into what is known about the cognitive map and the neural systems that facilitate navigation. The authors discuss how aging and diseases can impede navigation, and they introduce cutting-edge network models that show how the brain can act as a highly integrated system underlying spatial navigation. Throughout, the authors touch on fascinating examples of able navigators, from the Inuit of northern Canada to London taxi drivers, and they provide a critical lens into previous navigation research, which has primarily focused on other species, such as rodents. An ideal book for students and researchers seeking an accessible introduction to this important topic, Human Spatial Navigation offers a rich look into spatial memory and the neuroscientific foundations for how we make our way in the world.

The Neural Basis of Mentalizing

The Neural Basis of Mentalizing PDF Author: Michael Gilead
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030518906
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 685

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Book Description
Humans have a unique ability to understand the beliefs, emotions, and intentions of others—a capacity often referred to as mentalizing. Much research in psychology and neuroscience has focused on delineating the mechanisms of mentalizing, and examining the role of mentalizing processes in other domains of cognitive and affective functioning. The purpose of the book is to provide a comprehensive overview of the current research on the mechanisms of mentalizing at the neural, algorithmic, and computational levels of analysis. The book includes contributions from prominent researchers in the field of social-cognitive and affective neuroscience, as well as from related disciplines (e.g., cognitive, social, developmental and clinical psychology, psychiatry, philosophy, primatology). The contributors review their latest research in order to compile an authoritative source of knowledge on the psychological and brain bases of the unique human capacity to think about the mental states of others. The intended audience is researchers and students in the fields of social-cognitive and affective neuroscience and related disciplines such as neuroeconomics, cognitive neuroscience, developmental neuroscience, social cognition, social psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, and affective science. Secondary audiences include researchers in decision science (economics, judgment and decision-making), philosophy of mind, and psychiatry.

The Neural Basis of Early Vision

The Neural Basis of Early Vision PDF Author: A. Kaneko
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9784431684497
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
Researchers in recent decades have elucidated signal transduction in the retina and the function of the visual cortex. The highly flexible nature of neural circuits in the visual cortex especially during the critical period has been an interesting subject for studying neural plasticity and development. Recent advances in the visual neurosciences of the vertebrate retina and the visual cortex were discussed during the 12th Keio International Symposium for Life Science and Medicine, meeting jointly with Vision Forum 2002. Contributions to the symposium collected in this volume reflect the convergence of physiological, cell biological, molecular, mathematical, and clinical approaches. The book covers topics ranging from phototransduction to visual information processing in the primary visual cortex, and includes clinical studies on hereditary night blindness, creating a valuable source of information for researchers and clinicians in the visual neurosciences.

The Neural Basis of Echolocation in Bats

The Neural Basis of Echolocation in Bats PDF Author: George D. Pollak
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642836623
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
The brain of an echo locating bat is devoted, in large part, to analyzing sound and conducting behavior in a world of sounds and echoes. This monograph is about analysis of sound in the brainstem of echolocating bats and concerns the relationship between brain structure and brain function. Echolocating bats are unique subjects for the study of such relationships. Like man, echolocating bats emit sounds just for the purpose of listening to them. Simply by observing the bat's echolocation sounds, we know what the bat listens to in nature. We therefore have a good idea what the bat's auditory brain is designed to do. But this alone does not make the bat unique. The brain of the bat is, by mammalian standards, rather primitive. The unique aspect is the combination of primitive characteristics and complex auditory processing. Within this small brain the auditory structures are hypertrophied and have an elegance of organization not seen in other mammals. It is as if the auditory pathways had evolved while the rest of the brain remained evolutionary quiescent.

The Neural Basis of Oral and Facial Function

The Neural Basis of Oral and Facial Function PDF Author: Ronald Dubner
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1475716826
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 487

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Book Description
This book is a result of our combined major interests in oral and facial function. Since most of our research efforts have been concentrated on fundamental neural mechanisms, the book emphasizes basic research in this area. However, our back grounds in clinical dentistry have always made us acutely aware of the relevance of these findings to clinical problems in dentistry and medicine, and such correlations are emphasized throughout the text. The term, "oral and facial function," will here include the sensory and motor neural mechanisms of the face, mouth, pharynx, and larynx. Detailed discussions of nasal function, olfaction, and speech mechanisms have been omitted; these areas would encompass a book in themselves. A chapter on the subject of taste presents a brief overview in relation to other chapters in the book and clinical significance. We have not intended each chapter to be a review of the literature in a given area but have chosen to emphasize significant findings for total function of the area. References are limited to review articles whenever possible and the reader is invited to search such reviews for original articles of interest. Where such reviews are not available, original articles are usually referenced so that the book provides a path to source material for those so inclined. Some of the chapters on special areas of interest such as teeth, periodontium, and jaw reflexes, however, are extensively referenced because of their unique relationship to the subject matter of the book.

The Neural Basis of Free Will

The Neural Basis of Free Will PDF Author: Peter Tse
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262019108
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
The issues of mental causation, consciousness, and free will have vexed philosophers since Plato. This book examines these unresolved issues from a neuroscientific perspective. In contrast with philosophers who use logic rather than data to argue whether mental causation or consciousness can exist given unproven first assumptions, Tse proposes that we instead listen to what neurons have to say. Because the brain must already embody a solution to the mind--body problem, why not focus on how the brain actually realizes mental causation? Tse draws on exciting recent neuroscientific data concerning how informational causation is realized in physical causation at the level of NMDA receptors, synapses, dendrites, neurons, and neuronal circuits. He argues that a particular kind of strong free will and downward mental causation are realized in rapid synaptic plasticity. Recent neurophysiological breakthroughs reveal that neurons function as criterial assessors of their inputs, which then change the criteria that will make other neurons fire in the future. Such informational causation cannot change the physical basis of information realized in the present, but it can change the physical basis of information that may be realized in the immediate future. This gets around the standard argument against free will centered on the impossibility of self-causation. Tse explores the ways that mental causation and qualia might be realized in this kind of neuronal and associated information-processing architecture, and considers the psychological and philosophical implications of having such an architecture realized in our brains.

Polarized Light and Polarization Vision in Animal Sciences

Polarized Light and Polarization Vision in Animal Sciences PDF Author: Gábor Horváth
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3642547184
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 652

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Book Description
This book covers advances made since the 2004 Springer volume “Polarized Light in Animal Vision” edited by Horvath and Varju, but also provides reviews and synopses of some areas. Part I examines polarization sensitivity across many animal taxa including vertebrates and invertebrates and details both terrestrial and aquatic life. Part II is devoted to the description of polarized light in nature and explores how the physics of light must be taken into account when understanding how polarized light is detected by the visual system. This includes underwater polarization due to scattering; polarization patterns reflected from freshwater bodies; polarization characteristics of forest canopies; normal and anomalous polarization patterns of the skies; skylight polarization transmitted through Snell’s window and both linearly and circularly polarized signals produced by terrestrial and aquatic animals. This Part also examines polarized “light pollution” induced by anthropogenic factors such as reflection off asphalt surfaces, glass panes, car bodies, and other man-made structures that are now known to form ecological traps for polarotactic insects. Part III surveys some of the practical applications of polarization vision including polarization-based traps for biting insects, ground-based polarimetric cloud detectors and an historical examination of the navigational abilities of Viking seafarers using the sky polarization compass. The deterrent qualities of ungulate pelage to polarization-sensitive biting insects is also examined in this section.

Brain Mapping

Brain Mapping PDF Author: Hugues Duffau
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3709107237
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
The goal of this book is to make a link between fundamental research in the field of cognitive neurosciences, which now benefits from a better knowledge of the neural foundations of cerebral processing, and its clinical application, especially in neurosurgery – itself able to provide new insights into brain organization. The anatomical bases are presented, advances and limitations of the different methods of functional cerebral mapping are discussed, updated models of sensorimotor, visuospatial, language, memory, emotional, and executive functions are explained in detail. In the light of these data, new strategies of surgical management of cerebral lesions are proposed, with an optimization of the benefit–risk ratio of surgery. Finally, perspectives about brain connectivity and plasticity are discussed on the basis of translational studies involving serial functional neuroimaging, intraoperative cortico-subcortical electrical mapping, and biomathematical modeling of interactions between parallel distributed neural networks.