Behavioral Neuroscience

This book introduces the brain's remarkable capacity for memory. Like the first edition, this updated second edition begins with a history of memory research, starting with a ‘Golden Era’ at the turn of the 20th century, and progressing to our current understanding of the neurobiology of memory. Subsequent sections of the book discuss the cellular basis of memory, amnesia in humans and animals, the physiology of memory; declarative, procedural, and emotional memory systems; memory consolidation, and the control of memory by the prefrontal cortex. The book is organized into four sections, which highlight the major themes of the text. The first theme is connection, which considers how memory is fundamentally based on alterations in the connectivity of neurons. The first section of the book covers the most well studied models of cellular mechanisms of neural plasticity that may underlie memory. The second theme is cognition, which involves fundamental issues in the psychological structure of memory. This next section of the book considers the competition among views on the nature of cognitive processes that underlie memory, and tells how the controversy was eventually resolved. The third theme is compartmentalization, which is akin to the classic problem of memory localization. However, unlike localization, the notion of ‘compartments’ is intended to avoid the notion that particular memories are pigeon-holed into specific loci, and instead emphasize that different forms of memory are accomplished by distinct modules or brain systems. This third section of the book surveys the evidence for multiple memory systems, and outlines how they are mediated by different brain structures and systems. The fourth and final theme is consolidation, the process by which memories are transformed from a labile trace into a permanent store.

This book details the brain's remarkable capacity for memory. The book is organized into sections corresponding to its four major themes: Connection considers how memory is based on alterations to the communication between nerve cells. Cognition discusses the fundamental psychological structure of memory. Compartmentalization involved the notion that the different forms of memory are accomplished by distinct brain systems. Consolidation refers to processes by which memories are transformed from a labile trace into a permanent store. The book provides insights into how memory works and how it is fundamental to all aspects of cognition, behavior, and emotion.

Neuronal responses to identically presented stimuli are extremely variable. This variability has in the past often been regarded as “noise.” At the single neuron level, interspike interval (ISI) histograms constructed during either spontaneous or stimulus-evoked activity reveal a Poisson type distribution. These observations have been taken as evidence that neurons are intrinsically “noisy” in their firing properties. More recent attempts to measure the information content of single neuron spike trains have revealed that a surprising amount of information can be coded in spike trains even in the presence of trial-to-trial variability. Multiple single unit recording experiments have suggested that variability formerly attributed to noise in single cell recordings may instead simply reflect system-wide changes in cellular response properties. These observations raise the possibility that, at least at the level of neuronal coding, the variability seen in single neuron responses may not simply reflect an underlying noisy process. They further raise the very distinct possibility that noise may in fact contain real, meaningful information which is available for the nervous system in information processing. To understand how neurons work in concert to bring about coherent behavior and its breakdown in disease, neuroscientists now routinely record simultaneously from hundreds of different neurons and from different brain areas, and then attempt to evaluate the network activities by computing various interdependence measures including cross correlation, phase synchronization, and spectral coherence. This book examines neuronal variability from theoretical, experimental, and clinical perspectives.

The book links the analysis of the brain mechanisms of emotion and motivation to the wider context of what emotions are, what their functions are, how emotions evolved, and the larger issue of why emotional and motivational feelings and consciousness might arise in a system organized like the brain. The topics in motivation covered are hunger, thirst, sexual behaviour, brain-stimulation reward, and addiction. The book proposes a theory of what emotions are, and an evolutionary, Darwinian, theory of the adaptive value of emotion, and then describes the brain mechanisms of emotion. The book examines how cognitive states can influence emotions, and in turn, how emotions can influence cognitive states. The book also examines emotion and decision-making, with links to the burgeoning field of neuroeconomics. The book describes the brain mechanisms that underlie both emotion and motivation in a scientific form that can be used by both students and scientists in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, cognitive neuroscience, biology, physiology, psychiatry, and medicine.

Epilepsy is one of the most common disorders of the brain, and these patients often suffer from memory problems. There are a number of reasons for this: seizures can directly affect the brain in ways that disturb memory; epilepsy often results from trouble in brain regions closely linked to memory; the treatment of epilepsy can affect memory; epilepsy can cause psychological problems, like depression, which interfere with memory. This book reviews all aspects of the relationship between this common and potentially serious neurological disorder and memory, one of the core functions of the human mind. The chapters review the history of the subject; the clinical features of memory disorder in epilepsy; neuropsychological, neuroradiological, neuropathological, and electrophysiological findings; the roles of anticonvulsant side effects and psychiatric disorder; and the scope for memory support and rehabilitation. The study of patients with epilepsy has revealed much about the workings of memory, yet there has been no recent review of this field of research. This book aims to this gap.

A well-known example of filling-in involves the blind spot, a region in the back of the eye that is devoid of photoreceptors. The term blind spot is somewhat of a misnomer, because the corresponding region of visual space is not simply perceived as dark, as one would expect. Instead, it is “filled-in” with the same color and texture as the surrounding background. This phenomenon is often considered as little more than a curiosity. However, this book argues that completion mechanisms similar to those that fill in the blind spot are pervasive and necessary for normal perception. The book reviews evidence suggesting a link between particular neural processes and the perception of filling-in. It then introduces the idea that these processes can instigate various types of long-term neural plasticity, which may underlie recovery and rehabilitation after peripheral injury, as well as other types of skill learning. The connection between completion phenomena and long-term plasticity is explored not only in the visual system, but also in the auditory, somatosensory, and motor systems.

The hippocampus is one of a group of remarkable structures embedded within the brain's medial temporal lobe. Long known to be important for memory, it has been a prime focus of neuroscience research for many years. This book aims to facilitate developments in the field in a major way by bringing together contributions by leading international scientists knowledgeable about hippocampal anatomy, physiology, and function. This book offers an up-to-date account of what the hippocampus does, how it does it, and what happens when things go wrong. At the same time, it illustrates how research focusing on this single brain structure has revealed principles of wider generality for the whole brain in relation to anatomical connectivity, synaptic plasticity, cognition and behavior, and computational algorithms. Well-organized in its presentation of both theory and experimental data, this book illustrates the astonishing progress that has been made in unraveling the workings of the brain.

One of the most fascinating developments in the field of neuroscience in the second half of the 20th century was the discovery of the endogenous capacity of the brain for reorganization during adult life. Morphological and functional mechanisms underlying brain plasticity have been extensively explored and characterized. However, our understanding of the functional significance of these plastic changes is still fragmentary. This book shows that brain plasticity plays an essential role in the regulation of hormonal levels. The second aim is to propose that hormones orchestrate the multiple endogenous plastic events of the brain for the generation of adequate physiological and behavioral responses in adaptation to and in prediction of changing life conditions. The book starts by introducing the conceptual backgrounds on the interactions of hormones and brain plasticity. It then devotes itself to the analysis of the role of brain plasticity in the regulation of the activity of endocrine glands. It examines different hormonal influences on brain plasticity. Then, it goes on to cover the interactions of hormones and brain plasticity along the life cycle under physiological and pathological conditions.

This book evaluates the progress of schizophrenia science by summarizing what is known about how patients with the illness differ from healthy people. The tools of meta-analysis are first explained and then employed to make the strength and consistency of these differences explicit. Beginning with the study of symptoms, then moving through the search for objective disease markers, findings on the cognitive functions, structure, physiology, chemistry, and development of the brain, this book is a journey into the enigma of madness and its science. Schizophrenia emerges as an illness that reveals itself most strongly in thought processes, not biology. Schizophrenia is an anomaly at the frontier of mind and brain, and this book points the way to its solution.

The study of conscious experience has seen remarkable strides in the last ten years, reflecting important technological breakthroughs and the enormous efforts of researchers. Although still embroiled in debate, scientists are now beginning to find common ground in their understanding of consciousness, which may pave the way for a unified explanation of how and why we experience and understand the world around us. This book brings the subject to life with a metaphor that has been used to understand consciousness since the time of Aristotle—the mind as theater. Here consciousness is seen as a “stage” on which our sensations, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings play to a vast, silent audience (the immensely complicated inner-workings of the brain's unconscious processes). Behind the scenes, silent context operators shape conscious experience; they include implicit expectations, self systems, and scene setters. Using this framework, the book presents compelling evidence that human consciousness rides on top of biologically ancient mechanisms. In humans it manifests itself in inner speech, imagery, perception, and voluntary control of thought and action. Topics like hypnosis, absorbed states of mind, adaptation to trauma, and the human propensity to project expectations on uncertainty, all fit into the expanded theater metaphor.