Neuroscience

David J. Linden

A spirited collection of essays by cutting-edge neuroscientists that irreverently explores the quirky and counterintuitive aspects of brain function

"Make[s] us realize that what goes on in our minds is nothing short of magical." -Yasemin Saplakoglu, Scientific American

Neuroscientist David J. Linden approached leading brain researchers and asked each the same question: "What idea about brain function would you most like to explain to the world?" Their responses make up this one-of-a-kind collection of popular science essays that seeks to expand our knowledge of the human mind and its possibilities. The contributors, whose areas of expertise include human behavior, molecular genetics, evolutionary biology, and comparative anatomy, address a host of fascinating topics ranging from personality to perception, to learning, to beauty, to love and sex. The manner in which individual experiences can dramatically change our brains' makeup is explored.

Professor Linden and his contributors open a new window onto the landscape of the human mind and into the cutting-edge world of neuroscience with a fascinating and enlightening compilation that science enthusiasts and professionals alike will find accessible and enjoyable.

Neuroscience

Zoltan Torey

An account of the emergence of the mind: how the brain acquired self-awareness, functional autonomy, the ability to think, and the power of speech.

How did the human mind emerge from the collection of neurons that makes up the brain? How did the brain acquire self-awareness, functional autonomy, language, and the ability to think, to understand itself and the world? In this volume in the Essential Knowledge series, Zoltan Torey offers an accessible and concise description of the evolutionary breakthrough that created the human mind.

Drawing on insights from evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and linguistics, Torey reconstructs the sequence of events by which Homo erectus became Homo sapiens. He describes the augmented functioning that underpins the emergent mind-a new (“off-line”) internal response system with which the brain accesses itself and then forms a selection mechanism for mentally generated behavior options. This functional breakthrough, Torey argues, explains how the animal brain's “awareness” became self-accessible and reflective-that is, how the human brain acquired a conscious mind. Consciousness, unlike animal awareness, is not a unitary phenomenon but a composite process. Torey's account shows how protolanguage evolved into language, how a brain subsystem for the emergent mind was built, and why these developments are opaque to introspection. We experience the brain's functional autonomy, he argues, as free will.

Torey proposes that once life began, consciousness had to emerge-because consciousness is the informational source of the brain's behavioral response. Consciousness, he argues, is not a newly acquired “quality,” “cosmic principle,” “circuitry arrangement,” or “epiphenomenon,” as others have argued, but an indispensable working component of the living system's manner of functioning.

Neuroscience

Maureen Clerc, Laurent Bougrain, Fabien Lotte

Brain–computer interfaces (BCI) are devices which measure brain activity and translate it into messages or commands, thereby opening up many possibilities for investigation and application. This book provides keys for understanding and designing these multi-disciplinary interfaces, which require many fields of expertise such as neuroscience, statistics, informatics and psychology.

This second volume, Technology and Applications, is focused on the field of BCI from the perspective of its end users, such as those with disabilities to practitioners. Covering clinical applications and the field of video games, the book then goes on to explore user needs which drive the design and development of BCI. The software used for their design, primarily OpenViBE, is explained step by step, before a discussion on the use of BCI from ethical, philosophical and social perspectives.

The basic notions developed in this reference book are intended to be accessible to all readers interested in BCI, whatever their background. More advanced material is also offered, for readers who want to expand their knowledge in disciplinary fields underlying BCI.

Neuroscience

Maureen Clerc, Laurent Bougrain, Fabien Lotte

Brain–computer interfaces (BCI) are devices which measure brain activity and translate it into messages or commands, thereby opening up many investigation and application possibilities. This book provides keys for understanding and designing these multi-disciplinary interfaces, which require many fields of expertise such as neuroscience, statistics, informatics and psychology.

This first volume, Methods and Perspectives, presents all the basic knowledge underlying the working principles of BCI. It opens with the anatomical and physiological organization of the brain, followed by the brain activity involved in BCI, and following with information extraction, which involves signal processing and machine learning methods. BCI usage is then described, from the angle of human learning and human-machine interfaces.

The basic notions developed in this reference book are intended to be accessible to all readers interested in BCI, whatever their background. More advanced material is also offered, for readers who want to expand their knowledge in disciplinary fields underlying BCI.