Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies, from the National Research Council, identifies and explores several specific research areas that have implications for U.S. national security, and should therefore be monitored consistently by the intelligence community. These areas include: neurophysiological advances in detecting and measuring indicators of psychological states and intentions of individuals the development of drugs or technologies that can alter human physical or cognitive abilities advances in real-time brain imaging breakthroughs in high-performance computing and neuronal modeling that could allow researchers to develop systems which mimic functions of the human brain, particularly the ability to organize disparate forms of data. As these fields continue to grow, it will be imperative that the intelligence community be able to identify scientific advances relevant to national security when they occur. To do so will require adequate funding, intelligence analysts with advanced training in science and technology, and increased collaboration with the scientific community, particularly academia. A key tool for the intelligence community, this book will also be a useful resource for the health industry, the military, and others with a vested interest in technologies such as brain imaging and cognitive or physical enhancers.

Advances and major investments in the field of neuroscience can enhance traditional behavioral science approaches to training, learning, and other applications of value to the Army. Neural-behavioral indicators offer new ways to evaluate how well an individual trainee has assimilated mission critical knowledge and skills, and can also be used to provide feedback on the readiness of soldiers for combat. Current methods for matching individual capabilities with the requirements for performing high-value Army assignments do not include neuropsychological, psychophysiological, neurochemical or neurogenetic components; simple neuropsychological testing could greatly improve training success rates for these assignments. Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications makes 17 recommendations that focus on utilizing current scientific research and development initiatives to improve performance and efficiency, collaborating with pharmaceutical companies to employ neuropharmaceuticals for general sustainment or enhancement of soldier performance, and improving cognitive and behavioral performance using interdisciplinary approaches and technological investments. An essential guide for the Army, this book will also be of interest to other branches of military, national security and intelligence agencies, academic and commercial researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and others interested in applying the rapid advances in neuroscience to the performance of individual and group tasks.

The second edition of an essential resource to the evolving field of developmental cognitive neuroscience, completely revised, with expanded emphasis on social neuroscience, clinical disorders, and imaging genomics. The publication of the second edition of this handbook testifies to the rapid evolution of developmental cognitive neuroscience as a distinct field. Brain imaging and recording technologies, along with well-defined behavioral tasks—the essential methodological tools of cognitive neuroscience—are now being used to study development. Technological advances have yielded methods that can be safely used to study structure-function relations and their development in children's brains. These new techniques combined with more refined cognitive models account for the progress and heightened activity in developmental cognitive neuroscience research. The Handbook covers basic aspects of neural development, sensory and sensorimotor systems, language, cognition, emotion, and the implications of lifelong neural plasticity for brain and behavioral development. The second edition reflects the dramatic expansion of the field in the seven years since the publication of the first edition. This new Handbook has grown from forty-one chapters to fifty-four, all original to this edition. It places greater emphasis on affective and social neuroscience—an offshoot of cognitive neuroscience that is now influencing the developmental literature. The second edition also places a greater emphasis on clinical disorders, primarily because such research is inherently translational in nature. Finally, the book's new discussions of recent breakthroughs in imaging genomics include one entire chapter devoted to the subject. The intersection of brain, behavior, and genetics represents an exciting new area of inquiry, and the second edition of this essential reference work will be a valuable resource for researchers interested in the development of brain-behavior relations in the context of both typical and atypical development.

This text provides students and researchers with a foundation for examining how brain function gives rise to mental activities such as perception, memory and language. It is grouped into sections that cover attention, vision, auditory and somatosensory systems, memory and higher cortical.

This book examines emerging defense technologies such as directed energy weapons, nanotech devices, and bioscience applications that have the potential to dominate international relations in the future, just as nuclear weapons and space infrastructure-assisted conventional weapons do now. Emerging Military Technologies: A Guide to the Issues examines the potential of the United States to bring new technologies to deployment in the service of America's security and defense. The work also discusses how other international actors may regard the United States' investment in these high-tech capabilities, identifying possible resultant counter actions, and presents several divergent viewpoints on what the future may bring. The book thoroughly explores three general categories of emerging technologies: autonomous computers, nanotechnology and biotechnology, and the interrelated topics of directed energy weapons and ubiquitous space access. Security studies expert Wilson W.S. Wong balances coverage of today's cutting-edge science and engineering with treatment of real-world concerns of effectiveness, military ethics, and international relations in the 21st century. An invaluable resource for members of the military and intelligence communities, this book also provides general readers with an accessible introduction to these highly technical topics.

An investigation of intelligence as an emergent phenomenon, integrating the perspectives of evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. Emergence—the formation of global patterns from solely local interactions—is a frequent and fascinating theme in the scientific literature both popular and academic. In this book, Keith Downing undertakes a systematic investigation of the widespread (if often vague) claim that intelligence is an emergent phenomenon. Downing focuses on neural networks, both natural and artificial, and how their adaptability in three time frames—phylogenetic (evolutionary), ontogenetic (developmental), and epigenetic (lifetime learning)—underlie the emergence of cognition. Integrating the perspectives of evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, Downing provides a series of concrete examples of neurocognitive emergence. Doing so, he offers a new motivation for the expanded use of bio-inspired concepts in artificial intelligence (AI), in the subfield known as Bio-AI. One of Downing's central claims is that two key concepts from traditional AI, search and representation, are key to understanding emergent intelligence as well. He first offers introductory chapters on five core concepts: emergent phenomena, formal search processes, representational issues in Bio-AI, artificial neural networks (ANNs), and evolutionary algorithms (EAs). Intermediate chapters delve deeper into search, representation, and emergence in ANNs, EAs, and evolving brains. Finally, advanced chapters on evolving artificial neural networks and information-theoretic approaches to assessing emergence in neural systems synthesize earlier topics to provide some perspective, predictions, and pointers for the future of Bio-AI.

Report of a Workshop on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Workforce Needs for the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Defense Industrial Base is the summary of a workshop held August 11, 2011, as part of an 18-month study of the issue. This book assesses the STEM capabilities that the Department of Defense (DOD) needs in order to meet its goals, objectives, and priorities; to assess whether the current DOD workforce and strategy will meet those needs; and to identify and evaluate options and recommend strategies that the department could use to help meet its future STEM needs.