Neuroscienze

Memory itself is inseparable from all other brain functions and involves distributed dynamic neural processes. A wealth of publications in neuroscience literature report that the concerted action of distributed multiple oscillatory processes (EEG oscillations) play a major role in brain functioning. The analysis of function-related brain oscillations is currently one of the most important areas of neuroscience research. Memory and Brain Dynamics: Oscillations Integrating Attention, Perception, Learning, and Memory bridges the disciplines of neurophysiology, cognitive psychology, and EEG brain dynamics to examine how the brain represents mental events that are interwoven with memory. The book presents a new study-framework that links oscillatory brain activity with the concept of dynamic memory. In the main portion of the text, the memory is treated as an alliance of attention, perception, learning, and memory. Empirical evidence is dealt with in separate sections from theory development, yet these two parts of the book are carefully combined to present a unique philosophical/scientific perspective on brain function. Professor Erol Basar, Ph.D., is one of the pioneers emphasizing the importance of oscillatory brain dynamics for integrative brain function and memory since the 1970s.

This book presents a unique synthesis of the current neuroscience of cognition by one of the world's authorities in the field. The guiding principle to this synthesis is the tenet that the entirety of our knowledge is encoded by relations, and thus by connections, in neuronal networks of our cerebral cortex. Cognitive networks develop by experience on a base of widely dispersed modular cell assemblies representing elementary sensations and movements. As they develop, cognitive networks organize themselves hierarchically by order of complexity or abstraction of their content. Because networks intersect profusely, sharing common nodes, a neuronal assembly anywhere in the cortex can be part of many networks, and therefore many items of knowledge. All cognitive functions consist of neural transactions within and between cognitive networks. After reviewing the neurobiology and architecture of cortical networks (also named cognits), the author undertakes a systematic study of cortical dynamics in each of the major cognitive functions - perception, memory, attention, language, and intelligence. In this study, he makes use of a large body of evidence from a variety of methodologies, in the brain of the human as well as the nonhuman primate. The outcome of the interdisciplinary enterprise is the emergence of structural and dynamic order in the cerebral cortex that, though still sketchy and fragmentary, mirrors with remarkable fidelity the order of the human mind. The audience for this book consists of cognitive neuroscientists, neurophysiologists, neurobiologists, neuroimaging experts, neurologists, neurosurgeons, psychiatrists, cognitive psychologists, and linguists. The book will also be of interest to students in all of these disciplines and could be used as text or as collateral reading in courses in systems neuroscience, behavioral neuroscience, cognitive science, network modeling, physiological psychology, and linguistics.

This book comes from the very complete course notes that the Castro, Medical Neuroscinece Course Director at Loyola Medical School and his author team had compiled over the years for their courses. The text contains all of the important information faculty and students need for a medical neuroscience course, but offers a flexibility in format for instruction so that faculty can also supplement with their own materials. This Neuroscience book therefore provides a solid text with a great deal of adaptability. This is particularly important for integrated curriculums, where shorter books are favoured, with the additional appeal to students preparing for their exams.