The NEURON Book

The NEURON Book
Author: Nicholas T. Carnevale
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2006-01-12
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1139447831

The authoritative reference on NEURON, the simulation environment for modeling biological neurons and neural networks that enjoys wide use in the experimental and computational neuroscience communities. This book shows how to use NEURON to construct and apply empirically based models. Written primarily for neuroscience investigators, teachers, and students, it assumes no previous knowledge of computer programming or numerical methods. Readers with a background in the physical sciences or mathematics, who have some knowledge about brain cells and circuits and are interested in computational modeling, will also find it helpful. The NEURON Book covers material that ranges from the inner workings of this program, to practical considerations involved in specifying the anatomical and biophysical properties that are to be represented in models. It uses a problem-solving approach, with many working examples that readers can try for themselves.

The Neuron

The Neuron
Author: Irwin B. Levitan
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 640
Release: 2002
Genre: Molecular neurobiology
ISBN: 9780195145236

Intended for use by advanced undergraduate, graduate and medical students, this book presents a study of the unique biochemical and physiological properties of neurons, emphasising the molecular mechanisms that generate and regulate their activity.

Neuronal Dynamics

Neuronal Dynamics
Author: Wulfram Gerstner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 591
Release: 2014-07-24
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1107060834

This solid introduction uses the principles of physics and the tools of mathematics to approach fundamental questions of neuroscience.

Electrophysiology of the Neuron

Electrophysiology of the Neuron
Author: John Huguenard
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 92
Release: 1994
Genre: Medical
ISBN:

This manual and disk, available in IBM PC and Macintosh formats, accompanies Shepherd's Neurobiology, 3/e. It can be used separately even though it is keyed to the textbook. The 17 experiments investigate such areas as the resting membrane potential, action potential, voltage clamp, physiological properties of nerve cells, and synaptic potentials. The program allows students to propagate the action potential, adjust various parameters and observe the effects on nerve cell firing. Students will learn about equilibrium potentials and the effects of changing ion concentrations, as well as passive and active membrane properties. Separate experiments analyze sodium ion and potassium ion currents, the voltage dependence of these currents, and sleep vs. waking in single neurons. Study questions are provided throughout. This ingeniously-designed program will benefit all undergraduate students of neuroscience.

Models of the Mind

Models of the Mind
Author: Grace Lindsay
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2021-03-04
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1472966457

The human brain is made up of 85 billion neurons, which are connected by over 100 trillion synapses. For more than a century, a diverse array of researchers searched for a language that could be used to capture the essence of what these neurons do and how they communicate – and how those communications create thoughts, perceptions and actions. The language they were looking for was mathematics, and we would not be able to understand the brain as we do today without it. In Models of the Mind, author and computational neuroscientist Grace Lindsay explains how mathematical models have allowed scientists to understand and describe many of the brain's processes, including decision-making, sensory processing, quantifying memory, and more. She introduces readers to the most important concepts in modern neuroscience, and highlights the tensions that arise when the abstract world of mathematical modelling collides with the messy details of biology. Each chapter of Models of the Mind focuses on mathematical tools that have been applied in a particular area of neuroscience, progressing from the simplest building block of the brain – the individual neuron – through to circuits of interacting neurons, whole brain areas and even the behaviours that brains command. In addition, Grace examines the history of the field, starting with experiments done on frog legs in the late eighteenth century and building to the large models of artificial neural networks that form the basis of modern artificial intelligence. Throughout, she reveals the value of using the elegant language of mathematics to describe the machinery of neuroscience.

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
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2014-08-18
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0393244164

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.

From Neuron to Cognition via Computational Neuroscience

From Neuron to Cognition via Computational Neuroscience
Author: Michael A. Arbib
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 810
Release: 2016-11-04
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0262335271

A comprehensive, integrated, and accessible textbook presenting core neuroscientific topics from a computational perspective, tracing a path from cells and circuits to behavior and cognition. This textbook presents a wide range of subjects in neuroscience from a computational perspective. It offers a comprehensive, integrated introduction to core topics, using computational tools to trace a path from neurons and circuits to behavior and cognition. Moreover, the chapters show how computational neuroscience—methods for modeling the causal interactions underlying neural systems—complements empirical research in advancing the understanding of brain and behavior. The chapters—all by leaders in the field, and carefully integrated by the editors—cover such subjects as action and motor control; neuroplasticity, neuromodulation, and reinforcement learning; vision; and language—the core of human cognition. The book can be used for advanced undergraduate or graduate level courses. It presents all necessary background in neuroscience beyond basic facts about neurons and synapses and general ideas about the structure and function of the human brain. Students should be familiar with differential equations and probability theory, and be able to pick up the basics of programming in MATLAB and/or Python. Slides, exercises, and other ancillary materials are freely available online, and many of the models described in the chapters are documented in the brain operation database, BODB (which is also described in a book chapter). Contributors Michael A. Arbib, Joseph Ayers, James Bednar, Andrej Bicanski, James J. Bonaiuto, Nicolas Brunel, Jean-Marie Cabelguen, Carmen Canavier, Angelo Cangelosi, Richard P. Cooper, Carlos R. Cortes, Nathaniel Daw, Paul Dean, Peter Ford Dominey, Pierre Enel, Jean-Marc Fellous, Stefano Fusi, Wulfram Gerstner, Frank Grasso, Jacqueline A. Griego, Ziad M. Hafed, Michael E. Hasselmo, Auke Ijspeert, Stephanie Jones, Daniel Kersten, Jeremie Knuesel, Owen Lewis, William W. Lytton, Tomaso Poggio, John Porrill, Tony J. Prescott, John Rinzel, Edmund Rolls, Jonathan Rubin, Nicolas Schweighofer, Mohamed A. Sherif, Malle A. Tagamets, Paul F. M. J. Verschure, Nathan Vierling-Claasen, Xiao-Jing Wang, Christopher Williams, Ransom Winder, Alan L. Yuille

Foundations of the Neuron Doctrine

Foundations of the Neuron Doctrine
Author: Gordon M. Shepherd
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2015-11-03
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0190259388

The neuron doctrine, first formulated in 1891, states that the brain is constructed of individual neurons, organized into functioning circuits that mediate behavior. Above all else, this is the main concept that underlies all of modern neuroscience. This 25th Aniversary Edition of The Foundations of the Neuron Doctrine explains how this theory was the product of an explosion of histological studies and vigorous debates near the end of the nineteenth century by an extraordinary group of scientists, most importantly the leading figure of the time, Santiago Ramon y Cajal of Spain, and includes the foremost nervous system investigators of many countries, such as Albrecht Kolliker, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm His, August Forel, Fritdjof Nansen and Gustav Retzius.

From Neuron to Brain

From Neuron to Brain
Author: Stephen W. Kuffler
Publisher: Sinauer Associates, Incorporated
Total Pages: 680
Release: 1984
Genre: Medical
ISBN:

Dawn of the Neuron

Dawn of the Neuron
Author: Michel Anctil
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2015-10-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0773597336

In science, sometimes it is best to keep things simple. Initially discrediting the discovery of neurons in jellyfish, mid-nineteenth-century scientists grouped jellyfish, comb-jellies, hydra, and sea anemones together under one term - "coelenterates" - and deemed these animals too similar to plants to warrant a nervous system. In Dawn of the Neuron, Michel Anctil shows how Darwin's theory of evolution completely eradicated this idea and cleared the way for the modern study of the neuron. Once zoologists accepted the notion that varying levels of animal complexity could evolve, they began to use simple-structured creatures such as coelenterates and sponges to understand the building blocks of more complicated nervous systems. Dawn of the Neuron provides fascinating insights into the labours and lives of scientists who studied coelenterate nervous systems over several generations, and who approached the puzzling origin of the first nerve cells through the process outlined in evolutionary theory. Anctil also reveals how these scientists, who were willing to embrace improved and paradigm-changing scientific methods, still revealed their cultural backgrounds, their societal biases, and their attachments to schools of thought and academic traditions while presenting their ground-breaking work. Their attitudes toward the neuron doctrine - where neurons are individual, self-contained cells - proved decisive in the exploration of how neurons first emerged. Featuring photographs and historical sketches to illustrate this quest for knowledge, Dawn of the Neuron is a remarkably in-depth exploration of the link between Darwin's theory of evolution and pioneering studies and understandings of the first evolved nervous systems