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Cerebral cortex is probably the most complex biological network. Here many millions of individual neurons, the functional units of cortex, are interconnected through a massive yet highly organized pattern of axonal and dendritic wiring. This wiring enables both near and distant cells to coordinate their responses and generate a rich variety of cognitions and behaviours. When the wiring is damaged through disease or trauma it may reorganize but this may lead to characteristic pathological behaviours. While there have been significant advances in mapping cortical connectivity, the organizing principles and function of this connectivity are not well understood. On the one hand, there appears to...
There is a tradition of theoretical brain science which started in the forties (Wiener, McCulloch, Turing, Craik, Hebb). This was continued by a small number of people without interruption up to the present. It has definitely provided main guiding lines for brain science, the devel opment of which has been spectacular in the last decades. However, within the bulk of experimental neuroscience, the theoreticians some times had a difficult stand, since it was felt that the times were not ripe yet and the methods not yet available for a development of a true theoretical speciality in this field. Thus theory remained in the hands of a fairly small club which recruited its members from theoretical...
An explosion of new techniques with vastly improved visualization and sensitivity is leading a veritable revolution in modern neuroanatomy. Basic questions related to cell types, input localization, and connectivity are being re-visited and tackled with significantly more accurate and higher resolution experimental approaches. A major goal of this e-Book is thus to highlight in one place the impressive range of available techniques, even as these are fast becoming routine. This is not meant as a technical review, however, but rather will project the technical explosion as indicative of a field now in a vibrant state of renewal. Thus, contributions will be mainly research articles using the n...
The columnar organization is currently the most widely held hypothesis to explain the cortical processing of information, making its study of potential interest to any researcher interested in the cerebral cortex, both in a healthy and pathological state. Enough data are now available so that the Blue Brain Project can realistically tackle a model of the sensory column in rat. Few will deny however, that a comprehensive framework of the function and structure of columns has remained elusive. One set of persistent problems, as frequently remarked, is nomenclature. "Column" is used freely and promiscuously to refer to multiple, distinguishable entities; for example, cellular or dendritic minic...
It is in general well appreciated that the cortical interneurons play various important roles in cortical neuronal networks both in normal and pathological states. Based on connectivity pattern, developmental, morphological and electrophysiological properties, distinct subgroups of GABAergic interneurons can be differentiated in the neocortex as well as in the hippocampal formation. In this E-Book, we are focusing our attention on inhibitory interneurons expressing calcium-binding protein calretinin (CR). The aim of the E-Book is to consolidate the knowledge about this interneuronal population and to inspire further research on the function and malfunction of these neurons, which – functionally – seem to stand "at the top of the pyramid" of cortical interneuronal types.
This volume, with chapters by leading researchers in the field, is devoted to early vision and attention, that is, to the first stages of visual information processing. This state-of-the-art look at biological neural networks spans the many subfields, such as computational and experimental neuroscience; anatomy and physiology; visual information processing and scene segmentation; perception at illusory contours; control of visual attention; and paradigms for computing with spiking neurons.
Understanding and implementing the brain's computational paradigm is the one true grand challenge facing computer researchers. Not only are the brain's computational capabilities far beyond those of conventional computers, its energy efficiency is truly remarkable. This book, written from the perspective of a computer designer and targeted at computer researchers, is intended to give both background and lay out a course of action for studying the brain's computational paradigm. It contains a mix of concepts and ideas drawn from computational neuroscience, combined with those of the author. As background, relevant biological features are described in terms of their computational and communica...
This volume reviews the latest experimental and clinical research on brain plasticity. Featuring contributions from more than eighty international experts, the book examines the brain's capacity for functional recovery after various types of injury, including traumatic or ischemic brain injury and demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis.