Learn to use computational modelling techniques to understand the nervous system at all levels, from ion channels to networks.

Bringing together contributions in biology, neuroscience, computer science, physics, and psychology, this book offers a solid tutorial on current research activity in connectionist-inspired biology-based modeling. It describes specific experimental approaches and also confronts general issues related to learning associative memory, and sensorimotor development. Introductory chapters by editors Hanson and Olson, along with Terrence Sejnowski, Christof Koch, and Patricia S. Churchland, provide an overview of computational neuroscience, establish the distinction between "realistic" brain models and "simplified" brain models, provide specific examples of each, and explain why each approach might be appropriate in a given context. The remaining chapters are organized so that material on the anatomy and physiology of a specific part of the brain precedes the presentation of modeling studies. The modeling itself ranges from simplified models to more realistic models and provides examples of constraints arising from known brain detail as well as choices modelers face when including or excluding such constraints. There are three sections, each focused on a key area where biology and models have converged. Stephen Jose Hanson is Member of Technical Staff, Bellcore, and Visiting Faculty, Cognitive Science Laboratory, Princeton University. Carl R. Olson is Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology at Princeton Connectionist Modeling and Brain Functionis included in the Network Modeling and Connectionism series, edited by Jeffrey Elman.

Provides an introduction to the neural network modeling of complex cognitive and neuropsychological processes. Over the past few years, computer modeling has become more prevalent in the clinical sciences as an alternative to traditional symbol-processing models. This book provides an introduction to the neural network modeling of complex cognitive and neuropsychological processes. It is intended to make the neural network approach accessible to practicing neuropsychologists, psychologists, neurologists, and psychiatrists. It will also be a useful resource for computer scientists, mathematicians, and interdisciplinary cognitive neuroscientists. The editors (in their introduction) and contributors explain the basic concepts behind modeling and avoid the use of high-level mathematics. The book is divided into four parts. Part I provides an extensive but basic overview of neural network modeling, including its history, present, and future trends. It also includes chapters on attention, memory, and primate studies. Part II discusses neural network models of behavioral states such as alcohol dependence, learned helplessness, depression, and waking and sleeping. Part III presents neural network models of neuropsychological tests such as the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, the Tower of Hanoi, and the Stroop Test. Finally, part IV describes the application of neural network models to dementia: models of acetycholine and memory, verbal fluency, Parkinsons disease, and Alzheimer's disease. Contributors J. Wesson Ashford, Rajendra D. Badgaiyan, Jean P. Banquet, Yves Burnod, Nelson Butters, John Cardoso, Agnes S. Chan, Jean-Pierre Changeux, Kerry L. Coburn, Jonathan D. Cohen, Laurent Cohen, Jose L. Contreras-Vidal, Antonio R. Damasio, Hanna Damasio, Stanislas Dehaene, Martha J. Farah, Joaquin M. Fuster, Philippe Gaussier, Angelika Gissler, Dylan G. Harwood, Michael E. Hasselmo, J, Allan Hobson, Sam Leven, Daniel S. Levine, Debra L. Long, Roderick K. Mahurin, Raymond L. Ownby, Randolph W. Parks, Michael I. Posner, David P. Salmon, David Servan-Schreiber, Chantal E. Stern, Jeffrey P. Sutton, Lynette J. Tippett, Daniel Tranel, Bradley Wyble

This book is intended as a text for a one-semester course on Mathematical and Computational Neuroscience for upper-level undergraduate and beginning graduate students of mathematics, the natural sciences, engineering, or computer science. An undergraduate introduction to differential equations is more than enough mathematical background. Only a slim, high school-level background in physics is assumed, and none in biology. Topics include models of individual nerve cells and their dynamics, models of networks of neurons coupled by synapses and gap junctions, origins and functions of population rhythms in neuronal networks, and models of synaptic plasticity. An extensive online collection of Matlab programs generating the figures accompanies the book.

Foreword by Walter J. Freeman. The induction of unconsciousness using anesthetic agents demonstrates that the cerebral cortex can operate in two very different behavioral modes: alert and responsive vs. unaware and quiescent. But the states of wakefulness and sleep are not single-neuron properties---they emerge as bulk properties of cooperating populations of neurons, with the switchover between states being similar to the physical change of phase observed when water freezes or ice melts. Some brain-state transitions, such as sleep cycling, anesthetic induction, epileptic seizure, are obvious and detected readily with a few EEG electrodes; others, such as the emergence of gamma rhythms during cognition, or the ultra-slow BOLD rhythms of relaxed free-association, are much more subtle. The unifying theme of this book is the notion that all of these bulk changes in brain behavior can be treated as phase transitions between distinct brain states. Modeling Phase Transitions in the Brain contains chapter contributions from leading researchers who apply state-space methods, network models, and biophysically-motivated continuum approaches to investigate a range of neuroscientifically relevant problems that include analysis of nonstationary EEG time-series; network topologies that limit epileptic spreading; saddle--node bifurcations for anesthesia, sleep-cycling, and the wake--sleep switch; prediction of dynamical and noise-induced spatiotemporal instabilities underlying BOLD, alpha-, and gamma-band Hopf oscillations, gap-junction-moderated Turing structures, and Hopf-Turing interactions leading to cortical waves.

Recent advances in brain science measurement technology have given researchers access to very large-scale time series data such as EEG/MEG data (20 to 100 dimensional) and fMRI (140,000 dimensional) data. To analyze such massive data, efficient computational and statistical methods are required.Time Series Modeling of Neuroscience Data shows how to

Explains the relationship of electrophysiology, nonlinear dynamics, and the computational properties of neurons, with each concept presented in terms of both neuroscience and mathematics and illustrated using geometrical intuition. In order to model neuronal behavior or to interpret the results of modeling studies, neuroscientists must call upon methods of nonlinear dynamics. This book offers an introduction to nonlinear dynamical systems theory for researchers and graduate students in neuroscience. It also provides an overview of neuroscience for mathematicians who want to learn the basic facts of electrophysiology. Dynamical Systems in Neuroscience presents a systematic study of the relationship of electrophysiology, nonlinear dynamics, and computational properties of neurons. It emphasizes that information processing in the brain depends not only on the electrophysiological properties of neurons but also on their dynamical properties. The book introduces dynamical systems, starting with one- and two-dimensional Hodgkin-Huxley-type models and continuing to a description of bursting systems. Each chapter proceeds from the simple to the complex, and provides sample problems at the end. The book explains all necessary mathematical concepts using geometrical intuition; it includes many figures and few equations, making it especially suitable for non-mathematicians. Each concept is presented in terms of both neuroscience and mathematics, providing a link between the two disciplines. Nonlinear dynamical systems theory is at the core of computational neuroscience research, but it is not a standard part of the graduate neuroscience curriculum—or taught by math or physics department in a way that is suitable for students of biology. This book offers neuroscience students and researchers a comprehensive account of concepts and methods increasingly used in computational neuroscience. An additional chapter on synchronization, with more advanced material, can be found at the author's website, www.izhikevich.com.