Foundational Issues in Human Brain Mapping


Book Description

The field of neuroimaging has reached a watershed and critiques and emerging trends are raising foundational issues of methodology, measurement, and theory. Here, scholars reexamine these issues and explore controversies that have arisen in cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience, computer science, and signal processing.




Mapping the Brain and Its Functions


Book Description

Significant advances in brain research have been made, but investigators who face the resulting explosion of data need new methods to integrate the pieces of the "brain puzzle." Based on the expertise of more than 100 neuroscientists and computer specialists, this new volume examines how computer technology can meet that need. Featuring outstanding color photography, the book presents an overview of the complexity of brain research, which covers the spectrum from human behavior to genetic mechanisms. Advances in vision, substance abuse, pain, and schizophrenia are highlighted. The committee explores the potential benefits of computer graphics, database systems, and communications networks in neuroscience and reviews the available technology. Recommendations center on a proposed Brain Mapping Initiative, with an agenda for implementation and a look at issues such as privacy and accessibility.




Brain Imaging


Book Description

The ability to image brain processes non-invasively has created a flood of experiments that fall into two categories—aiming to localize brain performance of abstractions like love, memory or intention—or to identify neuronal activities in response to observable behavior.




From Molecules to Minds


Book Description

Neuroscience has made phenomenal advances over the past 50 years and the pace of discovery continues to accelerate. On June 25, 2008, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders hosted more than 70 of the leading neuroscientists in the world, for a workshop titled "From Molecules to Minds: Challenges for the 21st Century." The objective of the workshop was to explore a set of common goals or "Grand Challenges" posed by participants that could inspire and rally both the scientific community and the public to consider the possibilities for neuroscience in the 21st century. The progress of the past in combination with new tools and techniques, such as neuroimaging and molecular biology, has positioned neuroscience on the cusp of even greater transformational progress in our understanding of the brain and how its inner workings result in mental activity. This workshop summary highlights the important issues and challenges facing the field of neuroscience as presented to those in attendance at the workshop, as well as the subsequent discussion that resulted. As a result, three overarching Grand Challenges emerged: How does the brain work and produce mental activity? How does physical activity in the brain give rise to thought, emotion, and behavior? How does the interplay of biology and experience shape our brains and make us who we are today? How do we keep our brains healthy? How do we protect, restore, or enhance the functioning of our brains as we age?




The Human Brain Book


Book Description

The Human Brain Book is a complete guide to the one organ in the body that makes each of us what we are - unique individuals. It combines the latest findings from the field of neuroscience with expert text and state-of-the-art illustrations and imaging techniques to provide an incomparable insight into every facet of the brain. Layer by layer, it reveals the fascinating details of this remarkable structure, covering all the key anatomy and delving into the inner workings of the mind, unlocking its many mysteries, and helping you to understand what's going on in those millions of little gray and white cells. Tricky concepts are illustrated and explained with clarity and precision, as The Human Brain Book looks at how the brain sends messages to the rest of the body, how we think and feel, how we perform unconscious actions (for example, breathing), explores the nature of genius, asks why we behave the way we do, explains how we see and hear things, and how and why we dream. Physical and psychological disorders affecting the brain and nervous system are clearly illustrated and summarized in easy-to-understand terms.




Examining Biological Foundations of Human Behavior


Book Description

Biopsychology is a branch of psychology that analyzes how the brain and neurotransmitters influence our behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. It is a subdivision of behavioral neuroscience that studies the neural mechanisms of perception and behavior through direct manipulation of the brains of nonhuman animal subjects in controlled experiments. Biopsychology studies many topics relating to the body's response to a behavior or activity in an organism. It concerns the brain cells, structures, components, and chemical interactions that are involved in order to produce actions. Psychologists in this.




New Methods in Cognitive Psychology


Book Description

This book provides an overview of cutting-edge methods currently being used in cognitive psychology, which are likely to appear with increasing frequency in coming years. Once built around univariate parametric statistics, cognitive psychology courses now seem deficient without some contact with methods for signal processing, spatial statistics, and machine learning. There are also important changes in analyses of behavioral data (e.g., hierarchical modeling and Bayesian inference) and there is the obvious change wrought by the advancement of functional imaging. This book begins by discussing the evidence of this rapid change, for example the movement between using traditional analyses of variance to multi-level mixed models, in psycholinguistics. It then goes on to discuss the methods for analyses of physiological measurements, and how these methods provide insights into cognitive processing. New Methods in Cognitive Psychology provides senior undergraduates, graduates and researchers with cutting-edge overviews of new and emerging topics, and the very latest in theory and research for the more established topics.




The Science-Music Borderlands


Book Description

Interdisciplinary essays on music psychology that integrate scientific, humanistic, and artistic ways of knowing in transformative ways. Researchers using scientific methods and approaches to advance our understanding of music and musicality have not yet grappled with some of the perils that humanistic fields concentrating on music have long articulated. In this edited volume, established and emerging researchers—neuroscientists and cognitive scientists, musicians, historical musicologists, and ethnomusicologists—build bridges between humanistic and scientific approaches to music studies, particularly music psychology. Deftly edited by Elizabeth H. Margulis, Psyche Loui, and Deirdre Loughridge, The Science-Music Borderlands embodies how sustained interaction among disciplines can lead to a richer understanding of musical life. The essays in this volume provide the scientific study of music with its first major reckoning, exploring the intellectual history of the field and its central debates, while charting a path forward. The Science-Music Borderlands is essential reading for music scholars from any disciplinary background. It will also interest those working at the intersection of music and science, such as music teachers, performers, composers, and music therapists. Contributors: Manuel Anglada-Tort, Salwa El-Sawan Castelo-Branco, Hu Chuan-Peng, Laura K. Cirelli, Alexander W. Cowan, Jonathan De Souza, Diana Deutsch, Diandra Duengen, Sarah Faber, Steven Feld, Shinya Fujii, Assal Habibi, Erin. E. Hannon, Shantala Hegde, Beatriz Ilari, Jason Jabbour, Nori Jacoby, Haley E. Kragness, Grace Leslie, Casey Lew-Williams, Deirdre Loughridge, Psyche Loui, Diana Mangalagiu, Elizabeth H. Margulis, Randy McIntosh, Rita McNamara, Eduardo Reck Miranda, Daniel Müllensiefen, Rachel Mundy, Florence Ewomazino Nweke, Patricia Opondo, Aniruddh D. Patel, Andrea Ravignani, Carmel Raz, Matthew Sachs, Marianne Sarfati, Patrick E. Savage, Huib Schippers, Jim Sykes, Gary Tomlinson, Jamal Williams, Maria A. G. Witek, Pamela Z




The Handbook of Communication Science and Biology


Book Description

The Handbook of Communication Science and Biology charts the state of the art in the field, describing relevant areas of communication studies where a biological approach has been successfully applied. The book synthesizes theoretical and empirical development in this area thus far and proposes a roadmap for future research. As the biological approach to understanding communication has grown, one challenge has been the separate evolution of research focused on media use and effects and research focused on interpersonal and organizational communication, often with little intellectual conversation between the two areas. The Handbook of Communication Science and Biology is the only book to bridge the gap between media studies and human communication, spurring new work in both areas of focus. With contributions from the field’s foremost scholars around the globe, this unique book serves as a seminal resource for the training of the current and next generation of communication scientists, and will be of particular interest to media and psychology scholars as well.




I Know What You're Thinking


Book Description

Since the 1980s, MRI scanners have told us much about brain function and played an important role in the clinical diagnosis of a number of conditions - both in the brain and the rest of the body. Their routine use has made the diagnosis of brain tumours and brain damage both quicker and more accurate. However, some neuroscientific advances, in particular those that relate specifically to the mind have provoked excitement and discussion in a number of disciplines. One of the most thought provoking developments in recent neuroscience has been the progress made with 'mind-reading'. There seems nothing more private than one's thoughts, some of which we might choose to share with others, and some not. Yet, until now, little has been published on the particular issue of privacy in relation to 'brain' or 'mind' reading. I know what you're thinking provides a fascinating, interdisciplinary account of the neuroscientific evidence on 'mind reading', as well as a thorough analysis of both legal and moral accounts of privacy. It brings together leading academics from the fields of psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and law. The book considers such issues as the use of imaging to detect awareness in those considered to be in a vegetative state. It looks at issues of mental imaging and national security, the neurobiology of violence, and issues regarding diminished responsibility in criminals, and thus reduced punishment. It also considers how the use of neuroimaging can and should be regulated. Providing a ground breaking exploration of how brain imaging technologies can throw light on our mental capacities, states, and acts, this is an important new book for psychologists, neuroscientists, bioethicists, philosophers, and lawyers.