One of the most important questions of our previous common volumes about affective, schizoaffective, and schizophrenic disorders was the question of what connects and what separates psychotic disorders (Marneros and Tsuang, Schizo affective Psychoses, Springer-Verlag, 1986; Marneros and Tsuang Affective and Schizoaffective Disorders, Springer-Verlag, 1990; Marneros, Andreasen, and Tsuang, Negative and Positive Schizophrenia, Springer-Verlag 1993). The boundaries between various psychotic d...

You’re no idiot, of course. You know your own mind, but when it comes to understanding what’s really going on in your head—all those synapses! all those neurons!—you feel like you’re just about brain-dead.Don’t let it unnerve you! The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Understanding the Brain proves that you don’t need to be a genius to be in the know—and gives you lots of fun stuff to think about, too. In this Complete Idiot’s Guide®, you get:• The history of huma...

This volume is designed to serve as a reference source containing both historical and recent references with a special focus on the existing gaps of knowledge regarding EEG deviations in psychiatric populations. Every chapter begins by outlining the clinical issues, then reviews available literature and concludes by highlighting a) currently supportable findings, and b) open research questions. In some chapters the author makes suggestions regarding the research design that will most likel...

Motion processing is an essential piece of the complex brain machinery that allows us to reconstruct the 3D layout of objects in the environment, to break camouflage, to perform scene segmentation, to estimate the ego movement, and to control our action. Although motion perception and its neural basis have been a topic of intensive research and modeling the last two decades, recent experimental evidences have stressed the dynamical aspects of motion integration and segmentation. This book ...

The question about the function ofsleep remains one ofthe major challenges scientists are faced with. Wherein lies the fascination with sleep? I am convinced that it is the necessity for sleep. No one has failed to experience the overpowering urge to fall asleep after a disturbed night's sleep or after sleep was curtailed or deprived, especially when our daily activities impose restrictions on motor activity. The demand ofour body and brain to sleep challenges our understanding ofwhy this ...

CT afferents are receptors in mammalian hairy skin that fire action potentials when the skin is touched lightly which makes them particularly important in affective touch. Traditionally neuroscientific research has focused on more discriminative and haptic properties of touch that are mediated by large myelinated afferents and the coding properties and functional organization of unmyelinated CT afferents have been studied much less. The proposed volume will draw together existing knowledge...

This book integrates discoveries from recent years to show the diversity of molecular mechanisms that contribute to memory consolidation, reconsolidation, extinction, and forgetting. It provides a special focus on the processes that govern functional and structural plasticity of dendritic spines. In nine chapters, new and important ideas related to learning and memory processes will be presented. Themes discussed include the role of AMPA receptors in memory, two signalling cascades involve...

A thorough introduction is provided to the variety and complexity of the roles that glycoconjugates play in the cells of the nervous system. Basic information as well as the latest developments in neural glycobiology are discussed. Topics covered range from the structure and metabolism of the saccharide chains and current approaches used in their study, to changes glycoconjugates undergo during development and aging of the nervous system and the roles they have in neurological disease. The...

ATP acts as main energy source and is pivotal for numerous signaling cascades both inside the cells (by fuelling various transport systems and donating phosphate groups) and between the cells (by chemical transmission). Similarly glutamate acts as an important molecule for both intercellular signaling though glutamatergic transmission and cell energetics by contributing to ATP production.In this collection of chapters, written by the leading experts in the field of cell metabolism ...

The Systems Biology of Parkinson’s Disease will be underpinned by new measurement techniques. This is particularly true of the pathology of Parkinson's Disease, where recent developments in brain imaging have offered new insights into the morphology of dopaminergic neurons that have profound implications for the special vulnerability and role of this class of neurons.

For so long, the brain was the great unknown of human biology; an evolved complex of cells, chemicals and electricity, which eluded even the understanding of its own grey matter. Now, in this comprehensive guide, the most complicated concepts from across the field of neuroscience - such as memory, addiction and mind mapping - are broken down into easily understandable bite-sized pieces, to give everyone the chance to understand their own brain.Includes sections on:-The anat...