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Sleep has long been a topic of fascination for artists and scientists. Why do we sleep? What function does sleep serve? Why do we dream? What significance can we attach to our dreams? We spend so much of our lives sleeping, yet its precise function is unclear, in spite of our increasing understanding of the processes generating and maintaining sleep. We now know that sleep can be accompanied by periods of intense cerebral activity, yet only recently has experimental data started to provide us with some insights into the type of processing taking place in the brain as we sleep. There is now strong evidence that sleep plays a crucial role in learning and in the consolidation of memories. Once ...
Personalised accounts of out-of-body (OBE) and near-death (NDE) experiences are frequently interpreted as offering evidence for immortality and an afterlife. Since most OBE/NDE follow severe curtailments of cerebral circulation with loss of consciousness, the agonal brain supposedly permits 'mind', 'soul' or 'consciousness' to escape neural control and provide glimpses of the afterlife. Michael Marsh critically analyses the work of five key writers who support this so-called "dying brain" hypothesis. He firmly disagrees with such otherworldly 'mystical' or 'psychical' interpretations, ably demonstrating how they are explicable in terms of brain neurophysiology and its neuropathological distu...
An up-to-date, superbly illustrated practical guide to the effective use of neuroimaging in the patient with sleep disorders. The only book to date to provide comprehensive coverage of this topic. A must for all healthcare workers interested in understanding the causes, consequences and treatment of sleep disorders.
"Hypnosis in the Management of Sleep Disorders combines history and medical science to show that the use of hypnosis and hypnotic techniques is effective in the treatment of sleep disorders -- and that this is increasingly validated through modern tools (computers, fMRI images). Dr. Kohler and Kurz show readers that hypnosis and hypnotic techniques are not to be feared or avoided, but that their use can contribute to effective, non-intrusive, and cost-effective approaches to the treatment of sleep problems. This volume is a much needed reference for therapists and their patients alike on how hypnosis can be helpful in the treatment of certain sleep disorders"--The publisher
Essentials of Cognitive Neuroscience introduces and explicates key principles and concepts in cognitive neuroscience in such a way that the reader will be equipped to critically evaluate the ever-growing body of findings that the field is generating. For some students this knowledge will be needed for subsequent formal study, and for all readers it will be needed to evaluate and interpret reports about cognitive neuroscience research that make their way daily into the news media and popular culture. The book seeks to do so in a style that will give the student a sense of what it's like to be a cognitive neuroscientist: when confronted with a problem, how does one proceed? How does one read and interpret research that's outside of one's sub-area of specialization? How do two scientists advancing mutually incompatible models interrelate? Most importantly, what does it feel like to partake in the wonder and excitement of this most dynamic and fundamental of sciences?
Consciousness is one of the most significant scientific problems today. Renewed interest in the nature of consciousness - a phenomenon long considered not to be scientifically explorable, as well as increasingly widespread availability of multimodal functional brain imaging techniques (EEG, ERP, MEG, fMRI and PET), now offer the possibility of detailed, integrated exploration of the neural, behavioral, and computational correlates of consciousness. The present volume aims to confront the latest theoretical insights in the scientific study of human consciousness with the most recent behavioral, neuroimaging, electrophysiological, pharmacological and neuropathological data on brain function in...
The vegetative state - a condition in which someone is awake but unaware with no evidence of a working mind - is both emotive and challenging. This condition and that of someone who gains partial recovery of mental and neurological functions - known as the minimally conscious state - have provoked intense debate and considerable interest amongst scientists, health care professionals, ethicists, philosophers and lawyers. This unique special issue unites many experts in the field to review and discuss the many advances made in our understanding of these conditions. The strength of this special issue lies in the wide range of topics discussed - from definitions and diagnostic criteria to hotly debated topics such as whether a person in the vegetative state is truly unaware. This edition will serve as both a useful reference to those caring for people in these conditions as well as to those investigating the physiological basis of human consciousness.
Consciousness is undoubtedly one of the last remaining scientific mysteries and hence one of the greatest contemporary scientific challenges. How does the brain's activity result in the rich phenomenology that characterizes our waking life? Are animals conscious? Why did consciousness evolve? How does science proceed to answer such questions? Can we define what consciousness is? Can we measure it? Can we use experimental results to further our understanding of disorders of consciousness, such as those seen in schizophrenia, delirium, or altered states of consciousness? These questions are at the heart of contemporary research in the domain. Answering them requires a fundamentally interdiscip...
In this thesis, we examined the monkey cortical regions involved in processing of color, visual motion information, and the recognition of actions done by others. The aim was to gain better insight in the functional organization of the monkey visual cortex using in-house developed functional imaging techniques. Two different functional imaging techniques were used in these studies, the double-label deoxyglucose technique (DG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in the awake monkey (Chapter 2). Both techniques allow to obtain an overview of stimulus-related neural activity throughout the whole brain, integrated over a limited amount of time. The results of the color experiments (...