Neuroscience

Recent advances in our understanding of the human brain suggest that adolescence is a unique period of development during which both environmental and genetic influences can leave a lasting impression. To advance the goal of integrating brain and prevention science, two areas of research which do not usually communicate with one another, the Annenberg Public Policy Center's Adolescent Risk Communication Institute held a conference with the purpose of producing an integrated book on this interdisciplinary area. Contributors were asked to address two questions: What neurodevelopmental processes in children and adolescents could be altered so that mental disorders might be prevented? And what interventions or life experiences might be able to introduce such changes? The book deals with the following: biological and social universals in development; characteristics of brain and behavior in development; effects of early maltreatment and stress on brain development; effects of stress and other environmental influences during adolescence on brain development; and reversible orders of brain development.

This is the first book to deal with both the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms in appetites for drugs, food, sex, and gambling, and considers whether there are common factors between them. The book approaches this by looking at the bases of both normal and abnormal appetites in humans.

What is attention? How does it go wrong? Do attention deficits arise from genes or from the environment? Can we cure it with drugs or training? Are there disorders of attention other than deficit disorders? The past decade has seen a burgeoning of research on the subject of attention. This research has been facilitated by advances on several fronts: New methods are now available for viewing brain activity in real time, there is expanding information on the complexities of the biochemistry of neural activity, individual genes can be isolated and their functions identified, analysis of the component processes included under the broad umbrella of “attention” has become increasingly sophisticated, and ingenious methods have been devised for measuring typical and atypical development of these processes, from infancy into childhood, and then into adulthood. This book is concerned with attention and its development, both typical and atypical, particularly in disorders with a known genetic etiology or assumed genetic linkage. Tremendous advances across seemingly diverse disciplines — molecular genetics, pediatric neurology, child psychiatry, developmental cognitive neuroscience, and education s— have culminated in a wealth of new methods for elucidating disorders at multiple levels, possibly paving the way for new treatment options. The book uses three specific-yet-interlinking levels of analysis: genetic blueprint (genotype), the developing brain, and the behavioral-cognitive outcomes (phenotype), as the basis for charting the attention profiles of six well-documented neurodevelopmental disorders: ADHD, autism, fragile X syndrome, Down syndrome, Williams syndrome, and 22_q11 deletion syndrome.

The axon, which is interposed between the cell body and the synaptic terminals in most neurons, plays a crucial role in connecting neurons and acting as a conduit for the transmission of information between them. Axons have always been a favorite site for investigation in neuroscience. Axonology has moved ahead rapidly more recently. Molecular biology has provided new tools for studying the molecules that make up the axon and their associated glial cells. Increasingly powerful physiological techniques, together with immunocytochemical and immuno-ultrastructural methods, have facilitated a molecular dissection of the channels, exchangers, and pumps that are responsible for the functional properties of axons. The role of calcium in axonal function is now better understood and the complex dialogue between axons and glial cells that are associated with them now yield scrutiny. Such advances have applied not only to normal axons but also to their abnormal counterparts. Thus, the molecular and cellular events triggered by trauma, demyelination, and axonal injury in axons are being delineated, as the response of axons—and the cell bodies from which they originate—to injuries is studied in many laboratories. This book discusses, in close juxtaposition, various aspects of both normal and diseased axons. The book takes a multiauthored approach to this task.

This book contains a wide range of information of huge complexity on rat behavior. The book has three objectives. The first objective is to present an introduction of rat behavior. In choosing the rat as the subject species, the book has made the assumption that this species will remain, as it has in the past, the primary subject used the laboratory investigations of behavior. The second objective is to describe the organization and complexity of rat behavior. The major theme emerging from many lines of research on rat behavior is that understanding the rules of behavioral organization will be central in understanding the structural basis of behavior. The third objective is to update, as much as is possible, previous compendiums of rat behavior. Behavioral neuroscience continues to be a diverse field of research in which there remain many competing experimental methods and hypotheses. The behavioral descriptions in this book are closely tied to the laboratory methods from which they were derived, thus allowing investigators to exploit both the behavior and the methods for their own research. The first part of the book includes sections on natural history, sensory systems, motor systems, regulatory systems, development and parental behavior, social behavior, cognitive functions, and models. The second section is comprised by the major tests used by scientists interested in each domain of behavior.

There are many modes of communication that neurons use to transmit information besides what has come to be called neurotransmission. Many of these other types of communication can be classified as neuromodulatory, where instead of conveying excitation or inhibition, the signal from one neuron changes the properties of other neurons or synapses. This form of neuronal communication is often overlooked by systems physiologists, but it is extremely prevalent in the nervous system and needs to be included in any description of how the nervous system processes information. This book provides the foundations for understanding the cellular and molecular basis for neuromodulatory effects. It illustrates some key examples of the roles played by neuromodulation in sensory processing, neuromuscular transmission, generation of motor behaviours, and learning. Finally, the book seeks to point out areas that are likely to be of importance in the future study of information processing by the nervous system. It also summarizes a vast amount of research, and puts it into the context of how these cellular mechanisms are used in systems of neurons. By spanning the levels of analysis from sub-cellular mechanisms through cellular properties and neuronal systems to behaviour, the book provides a framework for understanding this currently exploding field of research.

This book looks at the application of engineering science and technology to biological cells and tissues that are electrically conducting and excitable. It describes the theory and a wide range of applications in both electric and magnetic fields. The similarities and differences between bioelectricity and biomagnetism are described in detail from the viewpoint of lead field theory. This book aims to help with the understanding of the properties of existing bioelectric and biomagnetic measurements and stimulation methods, and to aid with the designing of new systems.

The primary goal of this book is to summarize and synthesize recent advances in the biological study of aggression. Other than maternal aggression, most aggressive encounters among human and non-human animals represent a male proclivity; thus, most of the research in this book describes and discusses studies using the most appropriate murine model: testosterone-dependent offensive inter-male aggression, which is typically measured in resident-intruder or isolation-induced aggression tests. The research emphasizes various molecules that have been linked to aggression tests. It also emphasizes various molecules that have been linked to aggression by the latest gene-targeting and pharmacological techniques. Although the evidence continues to point to androgens and serotonin (5-HT) as major hormonal and neurotransmitter factors in aggressive behavior, recent work with GABA, dopamine, vasopressin, and other factors, such as nitric oxide, has revealed significant interactions with the neural circuitry underlying aggression.

This book presents a simple description of the biological mechanisms that are involved in the determination of sexual orientation in animals and also presumably in humans. Using scientific studies published over the last few decades, it argues that sexual orientation, both homosexual and heterosexual, is under the control of embryonic endocrine and genetic phenomena in which there is little room for individual choice. The book begins with animal studies of the hormonal and neural mechanisms that control the so-called instinctive behaviors and analyzes how this animal work may potentially apply to humans. The book does not focus exclusively on homosexuality, however. Instead, the book acts as a broader guide to the biological basis of sexual orientation, and also discusses important gender differences that may influence sexual orientation.

Scientists' understanding of two central problems in neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy has been greatly influenced by the work of David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel: What is it to see? This relates to the machinery that underlies visual perception, How do we acquire the brain's mechanisms for vision? This is the nature-nurture question as to whether the nerve connections responsible for vision are innate or whether they develop through experience in the early life of an animal or human. This is a book about the collaboration between Hubel and Wiesel, which began in 1958, lasted until about 1982, and led to a Nobel Prize in 1981. It opens with short biographies of both men, describes the state of the field when they started, and talks about the beginnings of their collaboration. It emphasizes the importance of various mentors in their lives, especially Stephen W. Kuffler, who opened up the field by studying the cat retina in 1950, and founded the department of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, where most of their work was done. The main part of the book consists of Hubel and Wiesel's most important publications. Each reprinted paper is preceded by a foreword that tells how they went about the research, what the difficulties and the pleasures were, and whether they felt a paper was important and why. Each is also followed by an afterword describing how the paper was received and what developments have occurred since its publication. The reader learns things that are often absent from typical scientific publications, including whether the work was difficult, fun, personally rewarding, exhilarating, or just plain tedious. The book ends with a summing-up of the present state of the field.