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This book contains a large collection of beautiful figures produced throughout the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, which represent some characteristic examples of the early days of research in neuroscience. The main aim of this work is to demonstrate to the general public that the study of the nervous system is not only important for the many obvious reasons related to brain function in both health and disease, but also for the unexpected natural beauty that it beholds. This beauty has been discovered thanks to the techniques used to visualize the microscopic structure of the brain, a true forest of colorful and florid neural cells. As illustrated by his marvelous drawings, the studies of Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934) no doubt contributed more than those of any other researcher at the time to the growth of modern neuroscience. Thus, his name has been honored in the title of this book, even though the figures contained in the main body of it are from 91 different authors. Looking at the illustrations in this book, the readers will find that many of the early researchers that studied the nervous system were also true artists, of considerable talent and esthetic sensibility. Hence, the present book contains numerous drawings of some of the most important pioneers in neuroscience, including Deiters, Kolliker, Meynert, Ranvier, Golgi, Retzius, Nissl, Dogiel, Alzheimer, del Rio-Hortega, and de Castro.

Neuroergonomics can be defined as the study of brain and behavior at work. It combines two disciplines: neuroscience, the study of brain structure and function; and ergonomics, the study of how to match technology with the capabilities and limitations of people so they can work effectively and safely. The goal of merging these two fields is to use the startling discoveries of human brain and physiological functioning both to inform the design of technologies in the workplace and home, and to provide new training methods that enhance performance, expand capabilities, and optimize the fit between people and technology. Research in the area of neuroergonomics has blossomed in recent years with the emergence of non-invasive techniques for monitoring human brain function that can be used to study various aspects of human behavior in relation to technology and work, including mental workload, visual attention, working memory, motor control, human-automation interaction, and adaptive automation. This book provides an overview of this emerging area, describing the theoretical background, basic research, major methods, as well as the new and future areas of application.

Broca's region has been in the news ever since scientists realized that particular cognitive functions could be localized to parts of the cerebral cortex. Its discoverer, Paul Broca, was one of the first researchers to argue for a direct connection between a concrete behavior—in this case, the use of language—and a specific cortical region. Today, Broca's region is perhaps the most famous part of the human brain, and for over a century, has persisted as the focus of intense research and numerous debates. The name has even penetrated mainstream culture through popular science and the theater. Broca's region is famous for a good reason: As language is one of the most distinctive human traits, the cognitive mechanisms that support it and the tissues in which these mechanisms are housed are also quite complex, and so have the potential to reveal a lot not only about how words, phrases, sentences, and grammatical rules are instantiated in neural tissue, but also, and more broadly, about how brain function relates to behavior. Paul Broca's discoveries were an important, driving force behind the more general effort to relate complex behavior to particular parts of the cerebral cortex, which, significantly, produced the first brain maps.

The activity of neurons in the brain is noisy in that their firing times are random when they are firing at a given mean rate. This introduces a random or stochastic property into brain processing which this book shows to be fundamental to understanding many aspects of brain function, including probabilistic decision making, perception, memory recall, short-term memory, attention, and even creativity. This book shows that in many of these processes, the noise caused by the random neuronal firing times is useful. However, the stochastic dynamics of this can be unstable or overstable, and the book shows that the stability of attractor networks in the brain in the face of noise may help to understand some important dysfunctions that occur in schizophrenia, normal aging, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The book provides a unifying computational approach to brain function that links synaptic and biophysical properties of neurons through the firing of single neurons to the properties of the noise in large connected networks of noisy neurons to the levels of functional neuroimaging and behaviour. It describes integrate-and-fire neuronal attractor networks with noise, and complementary mean-field analyses using approaches from theoretical physics. The book shows how they can be used to understand neuronal, functional neuroimaging, and behavioural data on decision making, perception, memory recall, short-term memory, attention, and brain dysfunctions that occur in schizophrenia, normal aging, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Advanced material on the physics of stochastic dynamics in the brain is contained in the Appendix.

What is intentionality? Intentionality is a distinguishing characteristic of states of mind such as beliefs, thoughts, wishes, dreams, and desires, which are about things outside themselves. This book explores various ways in which philosophers have tried to explain intentionality, and then suggests a new way. Part I of the book gives a critical account of the five most comprehensive and prominent current approaches to intentionality. These approaches can be summarized as the instrumentalist approach, derived from Carnap and Quine, and culminating in the work of Daniel Dennett; the linguistic approach, derived from the work of Chomsky and exhibited most fully in the work of Jerry Fodor; the biological approach, developed by Ruth Garrett Millikan, Colin McGinn, and others; the information-processing approach, which has been given a definitive form in the work of Fred Dretske; and the functional role approach of Brian Loar. Part II sets out a multi-level, developmental approach to intentionality. Drawing upon work in neurophysiology and psychology, the book argues that intentionality is to be found, in different forms, at the levels of brain functioning, prelinguistic consciousness, language, and at the holistic level of ‘whole person performance’ which is demarcated by our ordinary everyday talk about beliefs, desires, hopes, intentions, and the other ‘propositional attitudes’.

Recent advances in the brain sciences have dramatically improved our understanding of brain function. As we find out more and more about what makes us tick, we must stop and consider the ethical implications of this new found knowledge. Will having a new biology of the brain through imaging make us less responsible for our behavior and lose our free will? Should certain brain scan studies be disallowed on the basis of moral grounds? Why is the media so interested in reporting results of brain imaging studies? What ethical lessons from the past can best inform the future of brain imaging? These compelling questions and many more are tackled by a group of contributors to this book on neuroethics. The wide range of disciplinary backgrounds that this book represents, from neuroscience, bioethics and philosophy, to law, social and health care policy, education, religion, and film, allow for profoundly insightful and provocative answers to these questions, and open up the door to a host of new ones. The contributions highlight the timeliness of modern neuroethics today, and assure the longevity and importance of neuroethics for generations to come.

Music offers a unique opportunity to understand better the organization of the human brain. Like language, music exists in all human societies. Like language, music is a complex, rule-governed activity that seems specific to humans, and associated with a specific brain architecture. Yet unlike most other high-level functions of the human brain — and unlike language — music is a skill at which only a minority of people become proficient. The study of music as a major brain function has for some time been relatively neglected. Just recently, however, we have witnessed an explosion in research activities on music perception and performance and their correlates in the human brain. This volume brings together a collection of authorities — from the fields of music, neuroscience, psychology, and neurology — to describe the advances being made in understanding the complex relationship between music and the brain. It is a book that will lay the foundations for a cognitive neuroscience of music.