Why engineering and computational analogies are poorly suited to the study of biological cognitionMainstream theories of the brain are often expressed through engineering concepts—computation, code, control, reverse-engineering, optimization. These theories cast the living organism as a machine and the brain as a computer. The fact that cognition is a biological phenomenon seems merely anecdotal; biology is considered just “implementation.” In The Brain, In The...

An evolutionary case for the existence of free willScientists are learning more and more about how brain activity controls behavior and how neural circuits weigh alternatives and initiate actions. As we probe ever deeper into the mechanics of decision making, many conclude that agency—or free will—is an illusion. In Free Agents, leading neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell presents a wealth of evidence to the contrary, arguing that we are not mere machines respon...

The world's top experts take readers to the very frontiers of brain scienceIncludes a chapter by 2014 Nobel laureates May-Britt Moser and Edvard MoserAn unprecedented look at the quest to unravel the mysteries of the human brain, The Future of the Brain takes readers to the absolute frontiers of science. Original essays by leading researchers such as Christof Koch, George Church, Olaf Sporns, and May-Britt and Edvard Moser describe the spectacular t...

A neuroscientific perspective on the mind–body problem that focuses on how the brain actually accomplishes mental causation.The issues of mental causation, consciousness, and free will have vexed philosophers since Plato. In this book, Peter Tse examines these unresolved issues from a neuroscientific perspective. In contrast with philosophers who use logic rather than data to argue whether mental causation or consciousness can exist given unproven first assumptions...

Recent advances suggest that the concept of information might hold the key to unravelling the mystery of life's nature and origin. Fresh insights from a broad and authoritative range of articulate and respected experts focus on the transition from matter to life, and hence reconcile the deep conceptual schism between the way we describe physical and biological systems. A unique cross-disciplinary perspective, drawing on expertise from philosophy, biology, chemistry, physics, and cognitive ...

This is a uniquely comprehensive reference that summarizes the state of the art of signal processing theory and techniques for solving emerging problems in neuroscience, and which clearly presents new theory, algorithms, software and hardware tools that are specifically tailored to the nature of the neurobiological environment. It gives a broad overview of the basic principles, theories and methods in statistical signal processing for basic and applied neuroscience problems.Written...

"Mind-Brain Connection" is a part of the Neuropsychopharmacology course series textbooks. It is a tutorial written in questions and answers format. It is a study guide with in-depth explanations. Each section is a modular unit that is self-contained for easy reading. The principles and concepts are introduced systematically so students can learn and retain the materials intuitively.

An introduction to computational modeling for cognitive neuroscientists, covering both foundational work and recent developments.Cognitive neuroscientists need sophisticated conceptual tools to make sense of their field’s proliferation of novel theories, methods, and data. Computational modeling is such a tool, enabling researchers to turn theories into precise formulations. This book offers a mathematically gentle and theoretically unified introduction to modeling...

Computational neuroscience is the theoretical study of the brain to uncover the principles and mechanisms that guide the development, organization, information processing, and mental functions of the nervous system. Although not a new area, it is only recently that enough knowledge has been gathered to establish computational neuroscience as a scientific discipline in its own right. Given the complexity of the field, and its increasing importance in progressing our understanding of how the...

The problem of how the brain produces consciousness, subjectivity and 'something it is like to be' remains one of the greatest challenges to a complete science of the natural world. While various scientists and philosophers approach the problem from their own unique perspectives and in the terms of their own respective fields, Biophysics of Consciousness: A Foundational Approach attempts a consilience across disparate disciplines to explain how it is possible that an objective brain produc...

Mathematical Psychology and Psychophysiology promotes an understanding of the mind and its neural substrates by applying interdisciplinary approaches to issues concerning behavior and the brain. The contributions present model from many disciplines that share common, conceptual, functional, or mechanistic substrates and summarize recent models and data from neural networks, mathematical genetics, psychoacoustics, olfactory coding, visual perception, measurement, psychophysics, cog...

Beauty and the Brain: The Aesthetic Compass; Where Consciousness and the Physics of the Universe Meet explores how we as a society perceive beauty. This Fascinating text provides an explanation of how aesthetic appreciation occurs by a match of the structure of the brain and external forms, it also describes the brain mechanisms by which humans perceive beauty and how the logarithmic spiral form common in the universe is the same form inside the human brain. The reader will learn deep trut...