Average customer rating:
- Neural Science Review
- Very good introduction to Neural Science
- Simple and straightforward
- An excellent introductory survey of neuron function
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Essentials of Neural Science and Behavior
Eric R. Kandel ,
James H. Schwartz , and
Thomas M. Jessell
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill/Appleton & Lange
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Similar Items:
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Essentials of Neural Science and Behavior Study Guide & Practice Problems
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Principles of Neural Science
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In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind
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Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, And The New Biology Of Mind
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Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain (**)
ASIN: 0838522459 |
Book Description
This book introduces undergraduate students to the fundamentals of biology in mental processes.
Customer Reviews:
Neural Science Review.......2005-09-20
The delivery was very fast and arrived within a week of ordering. I felt very prepared for my Neurobiology class. Thanks!
Very good introduction to Neural Science.......2004-02-22
This is a very good introduction to Nural Science in general.
Not only it explains the inner workings of bio-chemical transmission used in the synapses and general nervous system, but it also goes beyond to explain what certain areas of the brain are responsable for, and what we believe are their working patterns.
It covers the general points, but lacks on deepness. Don't try to look in it for a thourough description of memory processes and how memory works, for instance.
Simple and straightforward.......1999-01-03
As a undergraduate student studying neurobiology, I found this book to be excellent in terms of simple explanations. This book was very easy to read and understand.
An excellent introductory survey of neuron function.......1997-03-03
This book is currently in use in many undergraduate institutions, and is amenable to use by first-time students to neurobiology who have a basic grounding in molecular biology. It is clear, concise, and rich with useful diagrams. Its structural layout is also effective for a progressive self-study approach since the chapters for the most part build and draw upon each other in a successive sense. I would recommend it as a "Must-read" for all introductory neurobiology students. A firm grasping of the information and concepts presented in this book will serve as a strong base from which students can begin to explore more detailed topics in the field without getting overwhelmed
Book Description
In this national bestseller, acclaimed, award-winning psychologist Dr. David Walsh explains exactly what happens to the human brain on the path from childhood into adolescence and adulthood. Revealing the latest scientific findings in easy-to-understand terms, Dr. Walsh shows why moodiness, quickness to anger and to take risks, miscommunication, fatigue, territoriality, and other familiar teenage behavior problems are so common -- all are linked to physical changes and growth in the adolescent brain.
Why Do They Act That Way? is the first book to explain the changes in teens' brains and show parents how to use this information to understand, communicate with, and stay connected to their kids. Through real-life stories, Dr. Walsh makes sense of teenagers' many mystifying, annoying, and even outright dangerous behavioral difficulties and provides realistic solutions for dealing with everyday as well as severe challenges. Dr. Walsh's techniques include, among others: sample dialogues that help teens and parents talk civilly and constructively with each other, behavioral contracts, and Parental Survival Kits that provide practical advice for dealing with issues like curfews, disrespectful language and actions, and bullying. With this arsenal of strategies, parents can help their kids learn to control impulses, manage erratic behavior, cope with their changing bodies, and, in effect, develop a second brain.
Customer Reviews:
Why Do They Act That Way?: A Survival Guide to the Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen.......2007-01-18
We have found this book to be extremely helpful. Raising a teenager is an amazing experience and it helps to have some expert, non partial advice that is backed by research. We especially appreciated the fact that the author does not offer excuses, but helps everyone remain responsible for their behavior, including parents. It was so helpful for us that we bought it as a gift for two different families that are raising teenagers. It was passed on to us by another family that is raising teenagers. Parents are looking for sound instruction. This book provides great insight to what is really going on inside those mysterious heads.
Why do They Act This Way? A Survival Guide to the Adolescent Brain and Your Teen.......2006-10-29
David Walsh is very readable, has a strong sense of humor necessary to deal with the teen psyche, and speaks well to frustrated parents about why their kids do what they do, and how to look at from their perspective and then deal with it more effectively. It's a fun read.
Excellent ---A Must Have for ALL parents.......2005-11-04
Dr. Walsh must have known my son. I felt like he wrote this book for my family. His explanations were easily understood and very insightful, but, not an excuse for the teen's behavior. It was hard at times to put the book down. I really wish my parents had read this book.
Thank YOU, Dr. Walsh. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
M. Weedman, Merritt Island, FL
A must for an parent of an adolescent.......2005-07-19
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I read it in two sittings. There were so many good and funny examples of real life situations that as a parent of a teenager, one can relate to all too well.
The author is well informed and the information about the human brain development is critical to understanding how to connect and deal with you teenager.
Highly recommend to all.
Interesting, enlightening, and useful.......2005-07-17
I was a hard sell when given this book. I was concerned that it was going to offer One Big Excuse for sorry teen-age behavior. I was already seeing the headlines: Teen Not Guilty; It wasn't his fault; His PFC made him do it!
Instead, I learned a great deal from this book. I wish the science had been there years ago. Besides getting a peek into the seemingly unfathomable teen-age brain, Walsh gave valuable information about how to handle the problems that come up as a result of the difficult transition known as adolescence. I see this information not so much as an excuse for poor behavior as it is a guide to lead people away from it. I recommend this book to teachers or anyone who has a child younger than 25!
Average customer rating:
- Often Recommended
- An exceptionally thorough, well written study
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Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development
Allan N. Schore
Manufacturer: Lawrence Erlbaum
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self/Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self (two-volume set)
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The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are
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The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Building and Rebuilding the Human Brain
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Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, Body, and Brain
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The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Social Brain
ASIN: 0805834591 |
Book Description
The main purpose of this monograph is to bring together in one place the lastest observations, data, and concepts from the developmental branches of psychoanalysis and neurobiology. For researchers and students in both disciplines.
Customer Reviews:
Often Recommended.......2001-06-09
The mother influences the child's growth and development. That's pretty obvious. This book goes to the neurobiological underpinnings of this phenomenon, referring to several thousand studies, to show how the connection between mother and child actual influences the way the child's brain develops. It is a treasure trove of information on how the prefrontal cortex matures through interaction with the mother in the early stages of life.
As organizer of The Futurehealth Winter Brain Meeting, I have repeatedly recommended this book to colleagues who have an interest in frontal lobes, to attachment disorder, to the links between the brain and self control, violence in the schools, and even, in a recent on-line listserve discussion with a former president of APA, who suggested that first come values and then positive emotions. This books strongly suggests that first come positive emotions and experiences and these lead to establishment of a brain w hich is responsible and well regulated. This is no light read. But Schore is worth it. He's brilliant.
An exceptionally thorough, well written study.......2000-01-01
I found this book exceptionally engaging and fascinating. I have read much about the development of affective, cognitive, psycho-sexual, self and gender development, and wanted to learn more about the physiological and anatomical correlates to the observable behaviors in babies and children, and this book was 100% satisfying. The author painstakingly discusses Bowlby, Ainsworth, Spitz and other attachment theorists, providing the essential facts of affective and attachment development, and then in a very clear, understandable way, provides the neuroanatomic and neurochemical explanations of the observed phenomena. The book is intensively researched, and the ideas are developed in a sequential, logical and easy-to-follow manner. I recommend reading Robert Karen's book "Becoming Attached" first, to truly understand Schore's book.
Book Description
* The most up-to-date and comprehensive coverage of the relationship of brain function and neuroactive chemicals
* Authors are world-known leaders in the field
* Molecular Neuropharmacology is the hot topic in medicine
Customer Reviews:
Great!.......2007-09-23
This book is very well written and interesting, discussing neuropharmocology from molecular, cellular, and biochemical bases as well as physiologically and socially.
Highly recommended.......2006-08-16
Great review of neuroscience from the pharmacological viewpoint. Thorough, systematic explanations of neurotransmitter systems up to higher brain functions. Highlights drugs that affect each system in the text. Begins with basic review of pharmacology and neuroscience for those who don't have solid footing there. Language is clear and easy to read, contains main points on first page of each chapter and selected reading at the end.
This is your brain on drugs, endogenous or otherwise........2004-06-22
Anyone who wants an understanding of how the brain works at the molecular level should read this excellent, succinct text. I recommend it to anesthesiologists in particular since we parctice in brain-neuropharmacology daily.
Highly Recommended!.......2002-05-02
This book is well organized, well written, and very informative. If you're interested in neuropharmacology, you should definitely get this book.
Book Description
A new way of dealing with chronic trauma from leaders in the field.
Life is an ongoing struggle for those who have been severely traumatized. Here, leading trauma experts present a theory and practice for dealing with chronic trauma. Recognizing the structural dissociation (splitting away of part of the self) that often results from trauma and proposing a plan for action that a survivor must implement in order to put his or her haunted past to rest, this book will be of interest to researchers as well as clinicians.
Customer Reviews:
An Excellent Text for those Working in this Controversial Field.......2007-07-15
At last - a truly excellent text on the psychological aspects of trauma-related disorders! This book provides a clear and comprehensive account of the theory and management of complex PTSD and complex dissociative disorders. In approaching the difficulties of categorising all the phenomena seen in these severely disturbed patients, the authors have taken a bird's eye view, presenting their theory of structural dissociation and linking it in a useful and meaningful way to a phased treatment model.
The issue of dissociation has been phenomenologically challenging and even more difficult to unravel theoretically. Van der Hart, Nijenhuis and Steele have accomplished this task with a quite densely written, but lucid, volume which draws on the work of Janet, expanding his concepts and defining a range of terms that greatly assist in conceptualising how dissociation and its consequences occur, and how its manifestations produce the symptoms these patients present. It draws on the growing neurobiological research into the underpinnings of dissociation and highlights the centrality of the phobic response to the traumatising event in the maintenance of dissociation.
The authors importantly distinguish between potentially and actually traumatising events, and traumatic experiences, recognising that only some people develop psychopathological symptoms or mental disorders in response to exposure to a particular event, which can then be identified as a traumatising event which produced a traumatic experience. This can be seen in contrast to the person who does not develop psychopathology and to whom the identical event may be quite stressful, but by definition is not traumatic.
While this theoretical analysis might seem a sufficient endeavour, the second part of the book provides an overarching map to treatment, connecting it throughout with the previously described theoretical framework. In contrast to many previous attempts, the plan provides an understanding of how the phased model of treatment seeks initially to consolidate the patient's response to the traumatising event, thereby attempting to diminish the likelihood of further disintegration. Further it does not view fusion of the dissociative parts, if this can be achieved, as the final therapeutic goal for those who dissociate in response to the traumatising event, but rather suggests that the ultimate task of treatment is to assist the patient to overcome the `phobia of normal life'.
Without doubt, the most helpful text yet for clinicians working in a psychological framework in this controversial field.
A Major Advancement in Understanding Trauma and Dissociation.......2007-05-11
In THE HAUNTED SELF the authors, Onno van der Hart, Ellert Nijenhuis and Kathy Steele present a theory of structural dissociation that builds upon the work of Pierre Janet and ties together the recent developments in the areas of trauma and dissociation. They build their theory methodically and concisely, tackling the difficult subject of dissociation and its effects on survivors of trauma. Their writing is compassionate and understanding, illuminating their therapeutic skills while at the same time delving into one of the most misunderstood and confounding areas of psychology with clarity and thoughtfulness.
The book is a challenging read, not because of the language, but because of the thoroughness and detail devoted to the construction of the authors' somewhat complex theory. Divided into two sections, the first constructs the theory of structural dissociation itself, with the second section presenting the phase oriented treatment, including examples illustrating the therapeutic processes involved.
The theory the authors present is consistent with recent advances in neuroscience and has the potential to impact the treatment of those suffering from a range of psychological disorders. The authors fully acknowledge and solicit feedback for those parts of their theory that are in need of further research. They also use the work of many others who have extended our knowledge of trauma and dissociation and its treatment over the past century.
Rather than approaching dissociative disorders by only examining the modern theories and developments, they begin with the work of Janet and thus are able to define the sequential breakdown of the personality in the face of traumatic incidences. Their theory respects the varied nature of individual responses making their approach most accessible for those who work directly with any dissociative system, from the simplest ranging to the most complex or polyfragmented.
This book is great advanced reading for those DID'ers who have already read everything else out there and are looking for more. Although it is dense, if you can make your way through it, you will find yourselves, as I did, commenting on how `on the mark' it feels.
THE HAUNTED SELF should be required reading for all psychology and neurobiology students as well as for all private practitioners and those currently working with the mentally ill in institutions, programs and educational settings. It is also excellent material for those seeking to understand more about the functions of the brain.
Three leading researchers and clinicians share their lessons from treating such individuals.......2007-05-08
Those who have been chronically traumatized have a range of symptoms which make for difficult assessment and treatment by therapists: THE HAUNTED SELF: STRUCTURAL DISSOCIATION AND THE TREATMENT OF CHRONIC TRAUMATIZATION is thus for college-level mental health holdings and practicing therapists who would identify and treat these issues, from daily living challenges to the recurrence of memories about a painful past. Three leading researchers and clinicians share their lessons from treating such individuals - over sixty years of collective experience - and provide a powerful set of insights for clinicians, students of clinical psychology and psychiatry, and any involved in mental health issues.
A Great Exposition of Understanding for Human Suffering.......2007-04-26
I must express extreme praise and admiration for the work and eventual understanding the authors of The Haunted Self have so relatively displayed in researching trauma related disorders and maladaptive behaviors. But the amazing thing is they were able to explain it in terms a sufferer can understand. This is not something that happens in research very often. I have been involved in research of some sort all my adult life and know that research produces facts and figures from which decisions and theories can be constructed with a reasonable amount of certainty. The one thing research cannot do is produce empathy and compassion. Being a post-modern theologian as well as an engineer, I know these two expressions can only come from a calling to help humanity. I am a fifty-one year old male who has suffered the agonizing pain of the effects of trauma in many different ways and forms all my life. After reading well over one-hundred and twenty thousand pages of research on my symptoms and problems and theorizing and journaling thoughts, I finally found not only an explanation but compassion and empathy within the pages of this book. I believe this is vital in any therapeutic relationship. Without a shadow of a doubt, the reader can make a therapeutic relationship with this book that can be externalized and extended into their patient therapist relationship. This book is to trauma and mental health as Einstein's theory of relativity is to physics or what the personal computer is to how we view information or, more importantly, what parole is to a prisoner.
I have been treated for many anxiety related symptoms but another symptom would just take its place after treatment. Then the original symptom would reoccur. This cycle has lasted all my life with devastating personal effects. But like most people with psychological disorders or underdeveloped functionality, it was hard to talk about what was really going on inside of me. I could neither express nor have the courage to face my inward demons. I was stuck in a living example of structural disassociation. My emotional self (EP) was stuck in the state of both somatic (empty) and exaggerated memories of accumulative trauma (or of personal perceptions of life events) while my normal every day self (ANP) was in a defensive war keeping me from dealing with the pain, relived trauma and torture of those memories. This actually caused a somatic type of discomfort. Of course this psychosomatic physical suffering just kept the cycle of mental distress going in a spiral of disassociation. Actually I was fighting for the gift of life as found in wholeness.
I have been inducted into the lifer's panic attack hall of fame. If that were not enough I have fought phobias, struggled with intrusive misplaced thoughts bordering OCD, mimicked heart attacks getting intimate with the EKG machine. I endured the embarrassment of publicly displaying tics and jerks and leg movements during stressful situations that I was ill equipped to handle. I would have to find some excuse for losing my current thought process during emotional and trying times. The list could go on but at this point I think you have the idea. I felt like a loser with no hope. Make no mistake. All of those labeled disorders were real. That is; they were symptomatically real due to trauma related structural disorder which affected and distorted my understanding of the gift of life. Treatment was nothing more than an aspirin for the pain. Healing started, however, through understanding the complex make up of my person.
The Haunted Self provided that understanding. I introduced the book to my therapist, whom is very good and someone I trust very much. She embraced the detailed theory as it applied to me much to my surprise. By the way, did I say she was good? Something amazing happened with this embrace. I know that what I am about to say will sound patronizing but healing is something one must share. Within five weeks of therapy using a facilitated understanding of this book by my therapist, symptoms began to weaken (of course I had already completed my homework and I desperately wanted change). Wholeness began happening in my life. Doors began to open to things I never understood. Changes began to happen to my thought process bleeding over into my actions (synaptic psychotherapy). I was actually creating opportunities for myself. I was able to accept past trauma perceptions and started believing and knowing that the defense used by my everyday self (ANP) only made things worse. I feel a life time of treatment, attempted understanding and suffering came to a head with nothing more than simple insight made clear to a somewhat neurotic person. Actually this understanding was presented as a detailed expression of the conflicting forces that wreck havoc on the lives of so many people that make up our world (makes one question the concept of spontaneous panic attacks).
This review is way too long so I will end here with a challenge. I challenge anyone who has been beleaguered with anxiety related disorders to look at themselves and their disorders from a different point of reference like the changing colors of light through a prism as presented in The Haunted Self. I also challenge all mental health professionals to at least look over this book and allow it to provoke your thoughts (it should be required reading for all doctoral students in psychology if only because of the post-modern interpretation of prior research). I believe this book is a holistic expression for a broad range of disorders that are now being treated separately and in this sufferer's opinion sometimes ineffectively. I do not pretend to be an expert in psychology as some of you who are will notice, while chuckling at my review, but I am a seasoned professional at suffering due to trauma or perceptions of trauma and the extreme bizarre anxiety and actions it produces.
A Brilliant Contribution Toward Understand and Healing.......2007-04-21
The Haunted Self is an illuminating and welcome contribution to our understanding of the effects of trauma on the human organism. The author's theoretical work, an extension of the work of Pierre Janet, offers a unifying theory by which one may more fully apprehend Dissociation. The theory and its practical clinical application are presented in a manner that helps to bridge the often disparate and confusing perspectives about this disorder and its treatment.
Complex concepts are clearly organized and articulated as the reader is guided to understand both the processes by which trauma fractures the self and the reparative therapeutic processes necessary to heal such fractures. The author(s) explain the physical and emotional mechanism(s) that contribute to the formation and maintenance of the pathology of Structural Dissociation. They describe the intricate neurophysiology that likely underpins the disorder and how the patient's and therapist's neurobiology (as expressed in a broad array of attachment, affect, sensorimotor, cognitive & behavioral manifestations) is considered and integrated into a collaborative phasing of the treatment plan.
This is an often dense but thoroughly satisfying read. Onno van der Hart, Ellert R. S. Nijenhuis and Kathy Steele know their subject and have meticulously explained and structured it in a way that makes sense.
Customer Reviews:
Good reference.......2007-01-12
Goes into Kandel's idea of uniting Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience, and presents an interesting list of papers and lecture Kandel has given throughout the last 30 years.
Not as pleasurable as his "A History of Mind", but definitely a must-read
Surprisingly readable.......2006-10-29
"Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and the New Biology of Mind"is surprisingly readable for what it is, a collection of papers and presentations on neuroscience. Many scientific publications are often just the opposite, frequently assuming familiarity with vocabulary and termiology not even featured in unabridged dictionaries. The book sometimes requires some careful reading, but that is all. It brings you up to date with all the current findings in the neuroscience field.
A historical document of a wonderfull new mind.......2006-08-09
In this book Dr. Kandel give us a review of his thinking.In his life he travel from the love of psychoanalisis to the biology, and in his experience can formulated the present of psychoanalisys... something visionary.
Vastly More Than a Text--The Future of Mankind's Mind.......2006-06-28
This is an extraordinary book that I selected in part based on Amazon's own extraordinary "referal" system. I have been richly rewarded. Although the book is completely out of my field, it has some blinding insights pertinent to my field, which is that of saving mankind by actualizing the World Brain envisioned by H. G. Wells.
This author, who earned the Nobel in 2000, has bridged the gap between biology of the mind, and psychology of the mind, but he has done much much more than that. This extraordinary book--perhaps I am alone in seeing this, but I believe it deeply--has finally articulated the connection between the health of the individual brain, and the health of mankind as a whole.
Although much of the book is too technical for my limited political science mind, what I see quite clearly is that this book is the manual for saving mankind's brain by focusing on three connected realities: the food that feeds the mind; the experience that educates the mind; and the visual cueing that stimulates the mind.
I have reviewed virtually all of the books on "wealth of knowledge" and knowledge as a catalyst for innovation and prosperity. What this book did for me was inspire a deeper sense of Hans Morgenthau's earlier focus on the population as the primary source of national power. I am reminded of George Will's "Statecraft as Soulcraft" as I contemplate the responsibilities of government for the nurturing of its population.
Here is the bottom line from this book as it applies to the future of mankind: the early years are CRITICAL to the ability to learn and innovate and prosper. Poverty will beget poverty UNLESS we work that triangle of food/water, experience, and visual stimulation (Note to the White House: Head Start).
As I read through this book I was acutely conscious of its relevance to the increasing "insanity" of society (see my reviews of "Random Actors" and also the "Logic of Suicidal Terrorism").
I do not review this book as a medical book, but rather as a social construction book. It helped crystalize in my mind the absolute ignorance of governments that fail to see that the minds of their individual citizens are the ultimate source of national power.
One final note: the author speaks of the impact of behavior on the brain. I translate that into the good behavior of America as an impact on the world, and especially on hostile Islam and the Middle Eastern countries whose oil we have been stealing for over a century.
I lament any inappropriate hyperbole here, but this book has really moved me. It shows so clearly how isolated our diverse academic and scientific specialities are from each other, how ignorant our governments are of the fundementals of mind and brain.
Wow. My highest praise: relevant to the future of mankind.
Fascinating synthasis of neuroscience with analytic-based psychiatry.......2005-12-14
Eight truly fascinating essays by Nobel Prize-winning psychiatrist and neurobiologist Eric Kandel. An incredible overview of how biology must influence psychiatric thought.
Each essay is accompanied by a commentary by an internationally recognized expert the field. Topics covered include the biological mechanisms of psychotherapy and medications, the ability to detect functional changes in the brain after psychotherapy, the need for animal models of mental disorders, the unification of behavioral psychology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology into the new science of the mind.
I eagerly await "In Search of Mind," which looks to be an update and synthesis by Kendal, due out March of 06.
If you want more depth, Kendal is also the author of *the* leading neuroscience text book: Principles of Neural Science.
If you want, instead to take a more integrated approach towards understanding how consciouness arises out of neuroscience, then the required books are "Consciousness Explained" and its follow up "Sweet Dreams" both by the brilliant polymath Daniel C. Dennett.
Finally, I the "related books" list should include "The Developing Mind" by Daniel Siegel.
Average customer rating:
- Thinking as an internalized movement!
- Readable and wide-ranging, but all from just one theoretical perspective
- Amazing Neuroscience synthesis!
- read it.
- Very worthwhile
|
I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self
Rodolfo R. Llinas
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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ASIN: 0262122332 |
Amazon.com
What is it about neuroscience that graces its practitioners with humility? Rodolfo Llinas of the NYU School of Medicine continues this tradition of quietly tackling the deepest issues in I of the Vortex. This exposition on the evolution and development of consciousness is accessible and intriguing enough to interest readers more philosophically than scientifically oriented. Grounded in research, the book posits our awareness as an artifact of the cortico-thalamic binding of perceptions and movements in synchrony; Llinas uses this theory as a launching pad for more far-reaching considerations of selfhood all the more relevant for their correlation with the facts.
Charmingly illustrated with artistic and scientific images cleverly supporting the arguments, the book is a quick if challenging read, and it explains all the scientific basics for those approaching from the humanities. Synthesizing evolution, philosophy, and neuroscience is becoming an increasingly popular endeavor for introspective eggheads, and we should be grateful: the question of consciousness affects us all and touches on every other field, from theology to particle physics. I of the Vortex is a welcome contribution to the theory of mind and essential reading for the introspective. --Rob Lightner
Book Description
In I of the Vortex, Rodolfo Llinas, a founding father of modern brain science, presents an original view of the evolution and nature of mind. According to Llinas, the "mindness state" evolved to allow predictive interactions between mobile creatures and their environment. He illustrates the early evolution of mind through a primitive animal called the "sea squirt." The mobile larval form has a brainlike ganglion that receives sensory information about the surrounding environment. As an adult, the sea squirt attaches itself to a stationary object and then digests most of its own brain. This suggests that the nervous system evolved to allow active movement in animals. To move through the environment safely, a creature must anticipate the outcome of each movement on the basis of incoming sensory data. Thus the capacity to predict is most likely the ultimate brain function. One could even say that Self is the centralization of prediction.
At the heart of Llinas's theory is the concept of oscillation. Many neurons possess electrical activity, manifested as oscillating variations in the minute voltages across the cell membrane. On the crests of these oscillations occur larger electrical events that are the basis for neuron-to-neuron communication. Like cicadas chirping in unison, a group of neurons oscillating in phase can resonate with a distant group of neurons. This simultaneity of neuronal activity is the neurobiological root of cognition. Although the internal state that we call the mind is guided by the senses, it is also generated by the oscillations within the brain. Thus, in a certain sense, one could say that reality is not all "out there," but is a kind of virtual reality.
Customer Reviews:
Thinking as an internalized movement!.......2007-06-24
Jorge Borges wrote, "I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities that I have visited, all my ancestors... Perhaps I would have liked to be my father, who wrote but has the decency of not publishing".
In the book "I of the vortex" Rodolfo Llinas gives another perspective on who am "I" and where "I" comes from, looking into the deep and dark recesses of the brain as a neuroscientist and physician, leaving God out from the game, unlike his maestro John Eccles, a dedicated theist, who wrote that "there is a Divine Providence operating over and above the materialistic happenings of biological evolution".
The ultimate thesis Llinas nominates is: "thinking is an internalized movement". He makes his point very clearly, based on his extensive knowledge and experience both as a scientist and writer. Perhaps thinking is an internalized movement? Perhaps not! The book "I of the vortex" is the ultimate read for those who ask Questions. An excellent book.
Readable and wide-ranging, but all from just one theoretical perspective.......2006-10-23
What is the "self" in neural terms? Few would be bold enough to claim an answer to that question. Yet in "I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self," Rodolfo Llinas sketches a very compelling picture of how the self, consciousness, and intelligence may arise in the brain.
Essentially, Llinas's argument goes as follows. First, brains are really only found in animals that move (so, obviously, plants do not have brains). In fact, at least one animal - the sea squirt - actually devours its own brain once it no longer needs to move. Although simple movements might be caused by oscillatory pattern generators in the spinal cord, the brain is necessary for more complex, sensory-guided movement. Why should this be so?
The answer Llinas provides is prediction, or in other words, a sensorimotor internal model of the world based on "dt lookahead" functions, interfacing the motor and sensory systems. Synchronized oscillations from the cerebellum (Llinas's area of expertise) carry out the motor-side of this computation, giving rise to the characteristic 8-12 Hz periodicity of the neural signals that command voluntary movements. At a higher frequency (40 Hz), other neuronal oscillations throughout the thalamocortical system serve to bind sensory representations together. And the subjective, cognitive correlate of the intersection of these oscillations is no less than the self: "this temporally coherent event that binds, in the time domain, the fractured components of external and internal reality into a single construct is what we call the 'self.'"
But wait, doesn't that mean that all animals have a sense of "self"- even the lowly sea squirt (at least before it eats its brain)? It would seem so. But that's not the end of Llinas's more controversial claims. Llinas also suggests that neural networks explain "very little concerning the actual functioning of the nervous system itself," advocating instead the idea that most of our cognitive abilities are genetically prewired at birth. Along these lines, Llinas endorses Chomsky's idea that genes may to a large extent determine language, and furthermore that language exists in many species besides homo sapiens.
It is here that "I of the Vortex" starts to seem more like a manifesto than a careful scientific analysis. For example, after introducing the basics of neurophysiology and comparative neurology in the first half of the book, Llinas skips the cognitive level of analysis almost altogether and starts extrapolating directly to issues of consciousness, awareness, and selfhood. This bias against direct investigations of cognition (something arguably very important for understanding consciousness) is nowhere more apparent than when he refers to cognitive neuroscience as "neophrenology." But without this important middle-level of analysis, Llinas is mostly shooting from the hip in the second half of the book - and aiming for concepts that are simply too far removed from Llinas's expertise in cellular neurophysiology.
On the whole, Llinas has done an admirable job of outlining one particular view of how neuronal dynamics may give rise to consciousness in an embodied cognition framework. In this sense, "I of the Vortex" makes an excellent companion to other high-level introductions to cognitive neuroscience.
Amazing Neuroscience synthesis!.......2005-08-14
The book presents an amazing Neuroscience synthesis that covers all the aspects: from ions to synergistic systems. It gives a thought-provoking explanation of the origin of the brain through evolution. It also explains the concepts of 'qualias' and 'fixed action patterns' in such an integrative manner and concludes that everything was perfectly made to synergistically create our predictive brains.
read it........2004-09-07
If you are going to read one book about neuroscience, consciousness, or the meaning of life, this should be it. Dr. Llinas has made some unusually innovative and profound assertions about how the self ("soul") might be generated from the mechanical workings of the brain. While the answer to the hard problem of consciousness remains elusive, I can honestly say after having read many books on the subject, that this is as close as it gets.
Very worthwhile.......2002-05-20
The author presents quite a plausible theory of mind, based on his work as a neuroscientist. I suspect Llinas is very much on the right track to illuminating the physical basis of consciousness.
Building chapter-by-chapter simultaneously on the apparent evolutionary development from the simplest neuronal system to the centralized brain, and on the results of brain scans and other experiments, Llinas brings us calmly and reasonably to the resultant human mind of today.
For Llinas, consciousness is the synchronized 40Hz firing of regions of the cortex over time. That is, consciousness is not just a given pattern of firing in 3-space, but is a 4-space relation. That additional dimension of time multiplies enormously the potential number of brain patterns that could occur in an individual. But it also makes the topic that much harder to study.
The writing feels like it has been written by someone who knows alot: there are many points where conceptual connections are not made entirely explicit (because it probably seemed so self-evident to Llinas) and the reader must fill in those gaps. Also, some of his non-neurologic language is quite technical: the description of the "self" as a calculated eigenvector, or the "vortex" which is essentially an attractor (as known in mathematics), that can make Llinas sound like a cold, hard-nosed scientist.
However, Llinas is refreshingly 'human'. For him, it is quite reasonable to assume (as a common consequence of evolution and similarity of brain structure) that many other species have forms of consciousness. Indeed, he devotes an entire chapter to qualia, and contends that qualia exist as essential brain feature, not only for humans but for cats and dogs and most other animals with brains of the same evolutionary genre (and that even in the case of invertebrate (octopus) brains he argues that the burden of proof is on those who would deny qualia).
One caveat: be aware that Llinas does not explicitly delineate between accepted facts and his theory - the book flows as one whole. It is not intented as deception. As he says in the preface "This book presents a personal view of neuroscience...".
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- How do we overcome childhood inculcation?
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Brain and Culture: Neurobiology, Ideology, and Social Change (Bradford Books)
Bruce E. Wexler
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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ASIN: 0262232480 |
Book Description
Research shows that between birth and early adulthood the brain requires sensory stimulation to develop physically. The nature of the stimulation shapes the connections among neurons that create the neuronal networks necessary for thought and behavior. By changing the cultural environment, each generation shapes the brains of the next. By early adulthood, the neuroplasticity of the brain is greatly reduced, and this leads to a fundamental shift in the relationship between the individual and the environment: during the first part of life, the brain and mind shape themselves to the major recurring features of their environment; by early adulthood, the individual attempts to make the environment conform to the established internal structures of the brain and mind. In Brain and Culture, Bruce Wexler explores the social implications of the close and changing neurobiological relationship between the individual and the environment, with particular attention to the difficulties individuals face in adulthood when the environment changes beyond their ability to maintain the fit between existing internal structure and external reality. These difficulties are evident in bereavement, the meeting of different cultures, the experience of immigrants (in which children of immigrant families are more successful than their parents at the necessary internal transformations), and the phenomenon of interethnic violence. Integrating recent neurobiological research with major experimental findings in cognitive and developmental psychology--with illuminating references to psychoanalysis, literature, anthropology, history, and politics--Wexler presents a wealth of detail to support his arguments. The groundbreaking connections he makes allow for reconceptualization of the effect of cultural change on the brain and provide a new biological base from which to consider such social issues as "culture wars" and ethnic violence.
Customer Reviews:
Courageous Insights Relevant to Every One of Us.......2007-07-03
The study of psychology has traveled down some interesting roads during the last century. After the long flirtation with the fascinating but flawed theories of psychoanalysis, a dominant theme became the idea that humans were no more than programmable robots. By way of a dozen detours, we then arrived at a new type of robot, one that was pre-programmed by his or her genes with environment contributing a little or a lot, depending upon our own beliefs about human nature. For that was always one of the problems: beliefs, biases and politics all played with the findings of psychology and neurology. For the totalitarian state, the idea that all people are born biologically equal and that, with the right prodding, they could be guided to be good citizens, became an article of faith in some parts of the world. Research, often only half understood, lead to grotesque attempts at social engineering.
Now the pendulum has swung again. Genes do not so much determine our behavior but influence our responses to the environment. During childhood our brains are incredibly plastic. The developing brain requires the right mix of nutrients, sensory, emotional and intellectual stimulation to realize its potential. The lion's share of higher cortical functions are dedicated to social functioning, and children first learn to develop in order to learn the social rules that help them to conform. During adolescence and early adulthood, this conformity is usually replaced by increasing individuality and drives to leave the parental nest. This leads to gradual attempts to shape the environment to fit with the structure of his or her brain and mind. Yet some plasticity remains throughout life, and we are likely able to create new neural connections and even new neurons into old age. And these new neurons and connections develop not only in response to the external environment, but also in response to our thoughts and emotions.
To these three findings - that genes predispose but do not determine; that our brains are malleable and plastic throughout life and third, the impact of our thoughts and beliefs on our brains - we can now add a fourth: the interplay of culture and society on our minds and genes, and the effects of our minds and genes on society.
This is one of a number of recent books that has begun to explore these important themes. Our genes lead - but do not force - us to create our world, and the world that we create has a powerful impact on the development of the next generation, who in turn create the world in their image.
Bruce Wexler is a Professor of Psychiatry at Yale and also directs the Neurocognitive Research Laboratory at the Connecticut Mental Health Center. He has been known for years as one of the most original and creative thinkers in his field. It shows in this book. It is just over 300 small pages and is crammed full of interesting ideas. The book is divided into two sections and five chapters:
Section I: Background: Some Basic Facts about the Human Brain
I. Transgenerational Shaping of Human Brain Function
2. Effects of Sensory Deprivation and Sensory Enrichment on Brain Structure and Function
3. Effects of the Social Environment on Brain Structure and Function
Section II. The Neurobiology of Ideology
4. Self-Preservation and the Difficulty of Change in Adulthood
5. The Meeting of Cultures
After which there is an Epilogue, References and an Index.
Bruce offers a neurologically based hypothesis that may go some way toward explaining some of the sectarian strife that has plagued so much of the world throughout history. He talks about the "neurobiology of ideology," to capture the process by which the human brain molds itself to its environment. Input from the world around us helps fashion our brains, and we in turn shape the world around us, which again shapes and changes the brain, leading to an endless dance between the brain, the mind and society.
This model helps to explain why it is that early life experiences can make it difficult to deal with unfamiliar events, emotions and situations later in life. But the argument also has a small hole in it. The author is an expert in human pathology, so he is interested in the way in which, say, "programming" in childhood may create problems later in life, as the individual encounters new challenges for which he or she is not prepared. As an example, if we think about an individual who was abused in childhood, he or she may have problems accepting and trusting a loving relationship as an adult. The disparity between the new environment and the developed brain may become a potent cause of distress and dysfunction. But that fails to answer another question: why do some people and some societies become distressed by novelty, while others delight in it?
This is an important, fascinating and thought provoking book that may provide answers to some of the problems that we see around us. We just need two more things: proof of his hypotheses and a way of using the model. That being said this work is already changing the way in which we see ourselves, not as the victims or beneficiaries of our genes, but as participants and co-creators of society and ourselves.
Highly recommended.
How do we overcome childhood inculcation?.......2006-07-26
I purchased Wexler's new book to further my understanding of the process thru which a person sheds obsolete religious beliefs -- such as those that were inculcated in childhood -- and then adapts present-day, non-theistic beliefs such as those described in my book "Concepts: A ProtoTheist Quest for Science-Minded Skeptics." I was hoping for a neurobiological elaboration of MD Faber's "The Psychological Roots of Religious Belief" (see my Amazon review of it) but I was only partially gratified.
After a brief description of the human brain, Wexler distinguishes two phases in the development of a person's brain (in my words, not his): In childhood the `seedling' neurons are searching out stimuli that `feed' their growth; what they obtain is how their brain gets `wired' ("our brain is what it eats"). As adults, this `wiring' not only influences what their brain looks for (gestalt) but how it interprets what it finds (projection); we try to reinforce what we learned as children and to adapt our environment to conform to our expectations. What doesn't conform to our mindset is routinely ignored or rejected. So as adults, one has to very deliberately maintain an open-mind to consider ideas that don't conform to one's early mindset, and the more the ideas stretch our mindset, the greater our tendency to reject them. Wexler elaborates extensively on this process citing research to back-up his contentions and examples of the consequences.
What Wexler doesn't elaborate to my satisfaction is how one overcomes the beliefs inculcated in childhood to achieve an unbiased understanding of today's world -- how one `rewires' their brain which can be an arduous process. Better yet would be ways of perpetuating the youthful growth of neurons into adult years to the extent possible (he alludes briefly to this on pages 242-3). He aptly describes immigrants' disorientation even as their children have an easier time adapting. And he describes how the loss of a spouse takes a year or so to accommodate. But he doesn't go into how today's media are affecting our openness to new ideas and other cultures. So I can recommend Wexler's book as a good introduction to the process but I'll have to keep looking for ways folks can let go of obsolete religious beliefs and replace them with an up-to-date ideology.
In Wexler's final chapter he discusses how indigenous and national cultures are being overwhelmed and extinguished by the global reach of the US's culture. But the rapid advances in today's technology are not entirely the doings of the US -- Europe, Japan, Australia and even India and China are encouraging this inevitable juggernaut (as he calls it) while Islamic cultures are resisting, often violently. To avoid violent confrontations he envisions a campus-like model (he's at Yale) where individuals can be exposed to unfamiliar cultures in least threatening ways. Wexler's book is well worth while but its overprice will discourage sales.
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Cerebral Lateralization: Biological Mechanisms, Associations, and Pathology (Bradford Books)
Norman Geschwind , and
Albert M. Galaburda
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
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ASIN: 0262071010 |
Book Description
Cerebral Lateralization is Norman Geschwind's last and perhaps most controversial work. Cowritten with Albert M. Galaburda, it presents his bold theory of left-handedness and brain development, exploring as no other current study has done the biology behind cerebral dominance or the specialization of the left and right sides of the brain for different functions.
This book, which illustrates and expands material that appeared in three issues of The Archives of Neurology, provides extensive discussions of the anatomical and chemical differences between the hemispheres, their development in fetal life, their evolution, and their relationship to hemispheric function. The various factors that affect brain structure - endocrinological, immunological, and genetic - particularly dominance characteristics in intrauterine life, are fully covered, offering new insights into the nature-nurture question and pointing up the importance of the fetal environment in altering the properties of the brain.
Many other intriguing areas are explored - the evidence for anatomical asymmetry during evolution and in other species, the concept of handedness and problems of its assessment, anatomical alterations in the brains of dyslexics, the advantages and disadvantages of cerebral dominance such as the elevated rate of left-handedness in certain highly skilled occupations, its association with childhood learning disorders, immune disease, and twinning. Seyeral sections are devoted to diseases with unilateral predominance in the brain or the body and those associated with particular dominance patterns.
The final chapter, which deals with asymmetries in physics and chemistry and their possible relationship to the eventual development of dominance in both humans and other species, shows the importance of asymmetry of the nervous system in probably all animals.
Norman Geschwind, M.D. (1926-1984) was James Jackson Putnam Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Director of the Neurological Unit, Beth Israel Hospital, and Professor of Psychology at MIT. Albert M. Galaburda, M.D. is Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. A Bradford Book.
Book Description
Our self-conception derives mostly from our own experience. We believe ourselves to be conscious, rational, social, ethical, language-using, political agents who possess free will. Yet we know we exist in a universe that consists of mindless, meaningless, unfree, nonrational, brute physical particles. How can we resolve the conflict between these two visions?
In Freedom and Neurobiology, the philosopher John Searle discusses the possibility of free will within the context of contemporary neurobiology. He begins by explaining the relationship between human reality and the more fundamental reality as described by physics and chemistry. Then he proposes a neurobiological resolution to the problem by demonstrating how various conceptions of free will have different consequences for the neurobiology of consciousness.
In the second half of the book, Searle applies his theory of social reality to the problem of political power, explaining the role of language in the formation of our political reality. The institutional structures that organize, empower, and regulate our lives-money, property, marriage, government-consist in the assignment and collective acceptance of certain statuses to objects and people. Whether it is the president of the United States, a twenty-dollar bill, or private property, these entities perform functions as determined by their status in our institutional reality. Searle focuses on the political powers that exist within these systems of status functions and the way in which language constitutes them.
Searle argues that consciousness and rationality are crucial to our existence and that they are the result of the biological evolution of our species. He addresses the problem of free will within the context of a neurobiological conception of consciousness and rationality, and he addresses the problem of political power within the context of this analysis.
A clear and concise contribution to the free-will debate and the study of cognition, Freedom and Neurobiology is essential reading for students and scholars of the philosophy of mind.
Customer Reviews:
Musings on Free Will.......2007-05-13
These essays are a low-voltage rehash of ideas set out in Searle's earlier books, where his one-mind concept of consciousness is set out much more lucidly. His musings on Free Will lack focus and clarity and the author ends up without taking a clear position on a topic where his brilliant philosophical studies should have allowed him to enlighten his readers.
Superficial.......2007-03-08
You'd expect a book with this title to actually have some neurobiology in it, but you'd be disappointed. This slim volume consists of two diffuse philosophical essays, one about free will, and the other about political power. Both are simplistic, in my view, and don't bring any new ideas to the table. The essay on free will was the most interesting, but despite the book's title, the author doesn't bring in any neurobiology. Instead he basically says that neurobiology should be involved, and possibly quantum mechanical randomness, because that's the only nondeterministic mechanism he can think of that might be related to the nondeterminism of free will. That particular idea is explored much more deeply in Roger Penrose's book "The Emperor's New Mind," which despite its flaws, is a much deeper and more solid book.
Searle finally writes about man as "zoon politikon".......2006-12-24
This book is 3 chapters: an intro chapter, a chapter on free will & neurobiology, and a chapter on political power. The book was previously just two lectures Searle gave in 2001 at Sorbonne. Eventually, Searle's editor published these two lectures in France without Searle's involvement leading Searle to end a quaint story saying, "It is the first time in my life that I published a book I did not know that I had written" (pg. 2). Searle added the intro chapter for his edition. Although the first essay on free will is meager progress on what Searle says elsewhere (see Searle's Rationality in Action (Jean Nicod Lectures)), the 2nd chapter on political power is a promising addition to what Searle has already hinted at in The Construction of Social Reality and Mind, Language, and Society : Philosophy in the Real World (he admits this fact, see pg. 33).
SEARLE ON FREE WILL & NEUROBIOLOGY
Searle puts in the title "Reflections" because he admits to not giving answers, especially to the problem of free will. Instead Searle wants to muse: "I cannot give you a solution to the problem of free will, but I hope to be at least able to state the problem in a precise enough form so that we can see what possible solutions would look like (pg. 31).
Searle is frustrated by free will and neurobiology because free will seems to be a phenomenological experience that is irreducible to epiphenomena, yet how can we be free to will when conscious states are realized in neurological states which are "completely deterministic"? (pg. 38 see all 40). But the notion of the freedom of the will does not go away, according to Searle, "if you say to the waiter `Look, I am a determinist - che sará sará, I'll just wait and see what I order,' that refusal to exercise free will is only intelligible to you as one of your actions if you take it to be an exercise of your free will" (pg. 43).
At this point Searle offers 2 hypotheses: (1) free will is an illusion and the deterministic physical laws which govern our neurons also govern consciousness i.e. epiphenomenalism; (2) "we have to suppose that the logical features of volitional consciousness of the entire system have effects on the elements on the system. This is true even though the system is composed entirely of the elements" (pg. 63). Thus, "the passage from one state to the next is explained by the rational thought processes of the initial state of neurons/consciousness. At any instant the total state of consciousness is fixed by the behavior of the neurons, but from on instant to the next the total state of the system is not causally sufficient to determine the next state. Free will, if it exists at all, is a phenomenon in time" (pg. 65). Searle's struggle to make free will somehow a feature (is "feature the right word, Searle sometimes says "realized" but we might want to ask for clarity) of neurophysiology has been on difficult grounds since at least Thomas Nagel wrote that we can know everything about a bat except what it is like to be a bat (see "What is it like to be a bat?" in Nagel's book Mortal Questions (Canto)). Searle wants "Hypothesis 2" to be correct but he concludes that it is currently "a mess" (pg. 77).
SEARLE ON DEONTIC POWER
Before this essay, Searle never had anything to say about politics (this is not completely true: see little-known book "The campus war; a sympathetic look at the university in agony). Searle says, "When I was an undergraduate, it was widely believed that political philosophy was dead" (pg. 13). However, after writing about institutional reality as collective intentionality in "The Construction of Social Reality" he decided that this chapter "Social Ontology and Political Power" would apply his linguistic account of institutional reality to the "special problem of political power" (pg. 33).
Searle begins by saying that "our tradition of political philosophy" has been "unsatisfying" because it doesn't ask the proper questions first: instead of "What is a just society" we should ask "What is a society in the first place?" (pg. 80) Searle describes a group of numbered and ordered propositions which develop through his essay; I will quote them here in truncated form (hopefully without losing meaningfulness).
(1) All political power is a matter of social functions, and for that reason all political power is deontic power (2) Because all political power is a matter of status functions, all political power, though exercised from above, comes from below (3) Even though the individual is the source of all political power, by his or her ability to engage in collective intentionality; all the same, the individual, typically, feels powerless (4) The system of political status functions works at least in part because recognized deontic powers provide desire-independent reasons for action (5) It is a consequence...that there is a distinction between political power and political leadership (6) Because political powers are matters of status functions they are, in large part, linguistically constituted (7) In order for a society to have a political reality it needs several other distinguishing features:...a distinction between the public and the private sphere with the political as part of the public sphere,...the existence of nonviolent group conflicts, and...group conflicts must be over social goods within a structure of deontology (8) A monopoly on armed violence is an essential presupposition of government.
Anyone serious about studying the extensions of Searle's thought must buy this book primarily for the brief essay on political philosophy. His essay on free will, Searle admits, is largely conceptually at an impasse.
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