The study and modulation of cortical connections is a rapidly growing area in neuroscience. This unique book by prominent researchers in the field covers recent advances in this area. The first section of the book describes studies of cortical connections, modulation of cortical connectivity and changes in cortical connections with activities such as motor learning and grasping in primates. The second section covers the use of non-invasive brain stimulation to study and modulate cortical connectivity in humans. The last section describes changes in brain connectivity in neurological and psychiatric diseases, and potential new treatments that manipulate brain connectivity. This book provides an up-to-date view of the study of cortical connectivity, and covers its role in both fundamental neuroscience and potential clinical applications.

In the last ten years many different brain imaging devices have conveyed a lot of information about the brain functioning in different experimental conditions. In every case, the biomedical engineers, together with mathematicians, physicists and physicians are called to elaborate the signals related to the brain activity in order to extract meaningful and robust information to correlate with the external behavior of the subjects. In such attempt, different signal processing tools used in telecommunications and other field of engineering or even social sciences have been adapted and re-used in the neuroscience field. The present book would like to offer a short presentation of several methods for the estimation of the cortical connectivity of the human brain. The methods here presented are relatively simply to implement, robust and can return valuable information about the causality of the activation of the different cortical areas in humans using non invasive electroencephalographic recordings. The knowledge of such signal processing tools will enrich the arsenal of the computational methods that a engineer or a mathematician could apply in the processing of brain signals. Table of Contents: Introduction / Estimation of the Effective Connectivity from Stationary Data by Structural Equation Modeling / Estimation of the Functional Connectivity from Stationary Data by Multivariate Autoregressive Methods / Estimation of Cortical Activity by the use of Realistic Head Modeling / Application: Estimation of Connectivity from Movement-Related Potentials / Application to High-Resolution EEG Recordings in a Cognitive Task (Stroop Test) / Application to Data Related to the Intention of Limb Movements in Normal Subjects and in a Spinal Cord Injured Patient / The Instantaneous Estimation of the Time-Varying Cortical Connectivity by Adaptive Multivariate Estimators / Time-Varying Connectivity from Event-Related Potentials

This book has brought together leading investigators who work in the new arena of brain connectomics. This includes ‘macro-connectome’ efforts to comprehensively chart long-distance pathways and functional networks; ‘micro-connectome’ efforts to identify every neuron, axon, dendrite, synapse, and glial process within restricted brain regions; and ‘meso-connectome’ efforts to systematically map both local and long-distance connections using anatomical tracers. This book highlights cutting-edge methods that can accelerate progress in elucidating static ‘hard-wired’ circuits of the brain as well as dynamic interactions that are vital for brain function. The power of connectomic approaches in characterizing abnormal circuits in the many brain disorders that afflict humankind is considered. Experts in computational neuroscience and network theory provide perspectives needed for synthesizing across different scales in space and time. Altogether, this book provides an integrated view of the challenges and opportunities in deciphering brain circuits in health and disease.

Deep brain stimulation has been used effectively for many years to treat patients suffering from Parkinson's disease. Now, neurologists and neurosurgeons are using electric pulse generators to block abnormal activity, i.e. epileptic fits. Promising research results indicate that electric pulses implanted deep in the brain can affect neurocircuitry and help stop oncoming seizures. Supplying a solid background on brain stimulation and its application to epilepsy, Deep Brain Stimulation and Epilepsy provides a historical overview, explores pathogenesis of brain stimulation, discusses animal experiments and human studies, and explores future prospects of brain stimulation for epileptic control. The editor and his team of contributors distill information drawn directly from the literature into one convenient resource.

By means of quantitative analysis of the tissue components in the cortex of the mouse, this book presents an overall picture of the cortical network which is then related to various theories on cortical function. Centering around the idea of a diffuse network in a fairly homogeneous population of excitatory neurons, that of the pyramidal cells, it shows that the whole organisation in the cortical skeleton of pryramidal cells corresponds well with the idea of an associative memory and with the theory of cell assemblies. Provides the reader with information on quantitative neuroanatomy and also on the methods used, in particular those that vary from the norm.

As MRI research becomes more detailed and specialized, it becomes essential to have detailed atlases that also explain individual variability, but other atlases do not provide this detail and leave users without illustration of, or guidance regarding how to deal with the variability they inevitably encounter in research and practice. This book serves as the first cortex atlas to address this growing need, appealing to clinicians, researchers and graduate students in neuroscience, neurology, neurosurgery and radiology. The atlas provides nearly 200 photographs of 3D reconstructions of human brains in a standard series of coronal, sagittal, and horizontal sections. It illustrates in detail and labels 95% of the cortex sulci and gyri, and images are presented in the MNI stereotaxic space. In addition to the standard brain and its sections are numerous examples of brains that exhibit patterns of deviating sulci and gyri. Examples of these variants are presented next to the standard illustration, accompanied by brief commentary aimed at helping users identify these variants and use them in their own work

The text is enriched throughout by close attention to functional aspects of the anatomical observations."--Jacket.