Neuroscience

Rajesh P. N. Rao

The idea of interfacing minds with machines has long captured the human imagination. Recent advances in neuroscience and engineering are making this a reality, opening the door to restoring and potentially augmenting human physical and mental capabilities. Medical applications such as cochlear implants for the deaf and deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease are becoming increasingly commonplace. Brain- computer interfaces (BCIs) (also known as brain- machine interfaces or BMIs) are now being explored in applications as diverse as security, lie detection, alertness monitoring, telepresence, gaming, education, art, and human augmentation. This introduction to the field is designed as a textbook for upper- level undergraduate and first year graduate courses in neural engineering or brain- computer interfacing for students from a wide range of disciplines. It can also be used for self- study and as a reference by neuroscientists, computer scientists, engineers, and medical practitioners. Key features include: Essential background in neuroscience, brain recording and stimulation technologies, signal processing, and machine learning.

Neuroscience

Patricia S. Churchland, Terrence J. Sejnowski

Before The Computational Brain was published in 1992, conceptual frameworks for brain function were based on the behavior of single neurons, applied globally. In The Computational Brain, Patricia Churchland and Terrence Sejnowski developed a different conceptual framework, based on large populations of neurons. They did this by showing that patterns of activities among the units in trained artificial neural network models had properties that resembled those recorded from populations of neurons recorded one at a time. It is one of the first books to bring together computational concepts and behavioral data within a neurobiological framework. Aimed at a broad audience of neuroscientists, computer scientists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers, The Computational Brain is written for both expert and novice. This anniversary edition offers a new preface by the authors that puts the book in the context of current research.

Neuroscience

Peter Godfrey-Smith

In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how subjective experience crept into being?how nature became aware of itself. As Godfrey-Smith stresses, it is a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared. Tracking the mind’s fitful development, Godfrey-Smith shows how unruly clumps of seaborne cells began living together and became capable of sensing, acting, and signaling. As these primitive organisms became more entangled with others, they grew more complicated. The first nervous systems evolved, probably in ancient relatives of jellyfish; later on, the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous mollusks, abandoned their shells and rose above the ocean floor, searching for prey and acquiring the greater intelligence needed to do so. Taking an independent route, mammals and birds later began their own evolutionary journeys.

Neuroscience

NeuroTechX

The Neurotech Primer is an effort of the NeuroTechX community to provide an introduction to the world of neurotechnology and the surrounding ecosystem. Readers will get the opportunity to learn about a variety of different devices and how they are able to either stimulate or read the brain. This book covers 11 different types of technologies, as well as its history, companies and key players that have helped to drive this field forward.

Neuroscience

Tan Le

Brain science is at the dawn of a new era—and the technologies emerging as a result could forever alter what it means to be human.

Welcome to what tech pioneer and inventor Tan Le calls "the NeuroGeneration." It will blow your mind.

The human brain is perhaps the most powerful and mysterious arrangement of matter in the known universe. New discoveries that unravel this mystery and let us tap into this power offer almost limitless potential—the ability to reshape ourselves and our thought processes, to improve our health and extend our lives, and to enhance and augment the ways we interact with the world around us. It may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but it is quickly becoming reality.

In The NeuroGeneration, award-winning inventor Tan Le explores exciting advancements in brain science and neurotechnology that are revolutionizing the way we think, work, and heal. Join Le as she criss-crosses the globe, introducing the brilliant neurotech innovators and neuroscientists at the frontiers of brain enhancement. Along the way, she shares incredible stories from individuals whose lives are already being transformed by their inventions—an endurance racer paralyzed in a fall, who now walks thanks to neural stimulation and an exoskeleton; a man who drives a race car with his mind; even a color-blind "cyborg" whose brain implant allows him to "hear" colors.

The NeuroGeneration reveals the dizzying array of emerging technologies—including cranial stimulation that makes you learn faster, an artificial hippocampus that restores lost memories, and neural implants that aim to help us keep up with or even outpace artificial intelligence—that promise to alter the brain in unprecedented ways, unlocking human potential we never dreamed possible.

Le also explores how these futuristic innovations will impact our world, disrupt the way we do business, upend healthcare as we know it, and remake our lives in wondrous and unexpected ways. As fascinating as it is timely, The NeuroGeneration offers a thrilling glimpse of the future of our species, and how changing our brains can change human life as we know it.