Synapses represent a unique neuronal compartment specialized in communication. The morpho-functional investigation of the synapse has always been hindered by its tiny size and high density of molecular elements, but specific technological and methodological advances helped us to reduce these limitations. As the matter of fact, in recent years, we have witnessed the continuous development of new methods allowing measuring and controlling synaptic activation both in vitro and in vivo. These include new genetically encoded sensors of synaptic exo-endocytosis, but also engineered synaptic proteins able to inhibit the release of neurotransmitters. Furthermore, new promising tools allow changing the functional properties of synapses in a plasticity-like manner. All these methodological advances are likely to generate unprecedented knowledge about the dynamics of synaptic transmission and plasticity at several levels of the nervous system. Nevertheless, in most cases, the implementation of these new methods remains technically demanding, likely due to the high complexity of their operating principle. Hence, it would be worth refining and potentiating these tools in order to extend the range of experimental settings for their application.

The Mammalian Spinal Cord provides a comprehensive account of the anatomy and histology of the spinal cord. The text covers the cytoarchitecture, chemoarchitecture, motor neuron distribution, long tracts, autonomic outflow, and gene expression in the spinal cord. A feature of the book is the inclusion of segment-by-segment atlases of the spinal cords of rat, mouse, newborn mouse, marmoset, rhesus monkey, and human. This book is an essential reference for researchers studying the spinal cord.

This book sets out to build bridges between the domains of photonic device physics and neural networks, providing a comprehensive overview of the emerging field of "neuromorphic photonics." It includes a thorough discussion of evolution of neuromorphic photonics from the advent of fiber-optic neurons to today’s state-of-the-art integrated laser neurons, which are a current focus of international research. Neuromorphic Photonics explores candidate interconnection architectures and devices for integrated neuromorphic networks, along with key functionality such as learning. It is written at a level accessible to graduate students, while also intending to serve as a comprehensive reference for experts in the field.

The hippocampus is one of a group of remarkable structures embedded within the brain's medial temporal lobe. Long known to be important for memory, it has been a prime focus of neuroscience research for many years. The Hippocampus Book promises to facilitate developments in the field in a major way by bringing together, for the first time, contributions by leading international scientists knowledgeable about hippocampal anatomy, physiology, and function. This authoritative volume offers the most comprehensive, up-to-date account of what the hippocampus does, how it does it, and what happens when things go wrong. At the same time, it illustrates how research focusing on this single brain structure has revealed principles of wider generality for the whole brain in relation to anatomical connectivity, synaptic plasticity, cognition and behavior, and computational algorithms. Well-organized in its presentation of both theory and experimental data, this peerless work vividly illustrates the astonishing progress that has been made in unraveling the workings of the brain. The Hippocampus Book is destined to take a central place on every neuroscientist's bookshelf.

This book discusses the primary functions of microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs) such as MAP2 and tau in neuronal morphogenesis, as well as relationships between neuronal differentiation and the expression of neuronal intermediate filaments (nestin, alpha internexin, and neurofilament triplet proteins). It emphasizes the importance of several cytoskeletal proteins for neuronal differentiation and morphogenesis, organelle transport, and synaptic functions. The book considers the involvement of tau MAPs in the formation of paired helical filaments in Alzheimer's disease, and it examines the mechanisms of organelle transports and molecular motors such as kinesin, braindynein, and kinesin superfamily proteins. Cytoskeletal proteins involved in synaptic formation and transmitter release and new synaptic junctional-associated proteins are explored as well.

Spiking Neural Networks (SNN) closely imitate biological networks. Information processing occurs in both spatial and temporal manner, making SNN extremely interesting for the pertinent mimicking of the biological brain. Biological brains code and transmit the sensory information in the form of spikes that capture the spatial and temporal information of the environment with amazing precision. This information is processed in an asynchronous way by the neural layer performing recognition of complex spatio-temporal patterns with sub-milliseconds delay and at with a power budget in the order of 20W. The efficient spike coding mechanism and the asynchronous and sparse processing and communication of spikes seems to be key in the energy efficiency and high-speed computation capabilities of biological brains. SNN low-power and event-based computation make them more attractive when compared to other artificial neural networks (ANN).