Deciphering anatomical and functional maps in the nervous system is a main challenge for both clinical and basic neuroscience. Modern approaches to mark and manipulate neurons are bringing us closer than ever to better understand nervous system wiring diagrams. Here we present both original research and review material on current work in this area. Together, this eBook aims to provide a comprehensive snapshot of some of the tools and technologies currently available to investigate brain wiring and function, as well as discuss ongoing challenges the field will be confronted with in the future.

How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.

This book models an idealized neuron as being driven by basic electrical elements, the goal being to systematically characterize the logical properties of neural pulses. In order to constitute a system, neurons as pulsating devices may be represented using novel circuit elements as delineated in this book. A plausible brain system is implied by the delineated elements and logically follows from known and likely properties of a neuron. New to electrical science are novel pulse-related circuit elements involving recursive neurons. A recursive neuron, when properly excited, produces a self-sustaining pulse train that when sampled, provides a true output with a specified probability, and a false output with complementary probability. Because of its similarity to the qubits of quantum mechanics, the recursive pulsating neuron is termed a simulated qubit. Recursive neurons easily function as controlled toggle devices and so are capable of massively parallel calculations, this being a new dimension in brain functioning as described in this book. Simulated qubits and their possibilities are compared to the qubits of quantum physics. Included in the book are suggested neural circuits for associative memory search via a randomized process of cue selection, and neural circuits for priority calculations. These serve to select returns from long term memory, which in turn determines one's next conscious thought or action based on past memorized experiences. The book reports on proposals involving electron tunneling between synapses, and quantum computations within neurons. Although not a textbook, there are easy exercises at the ends of chapters, and in the appendix there are twelve simulation experiments concerning neurons. ​

This book summarizes the latest research findings in the neurocircuitry of innate behaviors, covering major topics such as innate fear, aggression, feeding, reward, social interaction, parental care, spatial navigation, and sleep-wake regulation. For decades, humans have been fascinated by wild animals’ instincts, like the annual two-thousand-mile migration of the monarch butterfly in North American, and the “imprint” behavior of newborn birds. Since these instincts are always displayed in stereotypical patterns in most individuals of a given species, the neural circuits processing such behaviors must be genetically hard-wired in the brain. Recently, with the development of modern techniques, including optogenetics, retrograde and anterograde virus tracing, and in vivo calcium imaging, researchers have been able to determine and dissect the specific neural circuits for many innate behaviors by selectively manipulating well-defined cell types in the brain. This book discusses recent advances in the investigation of the neural-circuit mechanisms underlying innate behaviors.

Control problems offer an industrially important application and a guide to understanding control systems for those working in Neural Networks. Neural Systems for Control represents the most up-to-date developments in the rapidly growing aplication area of neural networks and focuses on research in natural and artifical neural systems directly applicable to control or making use of modern control theory. The book covers such important new developments in control systems such as intelligent sensors in semiconductor wafer manufacturing; the relation between muscles and cerebral neurons in speech recognition; online compensation of reconfigurable control for spacecraft aircraft and other systems; applications to rolling mills, robotics and process control; the usage of past output data to identify nonlinear systems by neural networks; neural approximate optimal control; model-free nonlinear control; and neural control based on a regulation of physiological investigation/blood pressure control. All researchers and students dealing with control systems will find the fascinating Neural Systems for Control of immense interest and assistance. - Focuses on research in natural and artifical neural systems directly applicable to contol or making use of modern control theory - Represents the most up-to-date developments in this rapidly growing application area of neural networks - Takes a new and novel approach to system identification and synthesis

“Accessible, witty . . . an important new researcher, philosopher and popularizer of brain science . . . on par with cosmology’s Brian Greene and the late Carl Sagan” (The Plain Dealer). One of the Wall Street Journal’s 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the Year and a Publishers Weekly “Top Ten in Science” Title Every person is unique, but science has struggled to pinpoint where, precisely, that uniqueness resides. Our genome may determine our eye color and even aspects of our character. But our friendships, failures, and passions also shape who we are. The question is: How? Sebastian Seung is at the forefront of a revolution in neuroscience. He believes that our identity lies not in our genes, but in the connections between our brain cells—our particular wiring. Seung and a dedicated group of researchers are leading the effort to map these connections, neuron by neuron, synapse by synapse. It’s a monumental effort, but if they succeed, they will uncover the basis of personality, identity, intelligence, memory, and perhaps disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. Connectome is a mind-bending adventure story offering a daring scientific and technological vision for understanding what makes us who we are, as individuals and as a species. “This is complicated stuff, and it is a testament to Dr. Seung’s remarkable clarity of exposition that the reader is swept along with his enthusiasm, as he moves from the basics of neuroscience out to the farthest regions of the hypothetical, sketching out a spectacularly illustrated giant map of the universe of man.” —TheNew York Times “An elegant primer on what’s known about how the brain is organized and how it grows, wires its neurons, perceives its environment, modifies or repairs itself, and stores information. Seung is a clear, lively writer who chooses vivid examples.” —TheWashington Post

The nervous system is highly complex both in its structural order and in its ability to perform the many functions required for survival and interaction with the environment; understanding how it develops has proven to be one of the greatest challenges in biology. Such precision demands that key events at every developmental stage are executed properly and are coordinated to produce the circuitry underlying each of the adult nervous system's functions. This volume describes the latest research on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of neural circuitry development, while providing researchers with a one-stop overview and synthesis of contemporary thought in the area. Reviews current research findings on the development of neural circuitry, providing researchers with an overview and synthesis of the latest contemporary thought in the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie the development of neural circuitry Includes chapters discussing topics such as the guidance of nerve growth and the formation of plasticity of synapses, helping researchers better understand underlying mechanisms of neural circuit development and maintenance that may play a role in such human diseases/conditions as depression, anxiety, and pain Chapters make use of a variety of human and animal models, allowing researchers to compare and contrast neural circuitry development across a wide spectrum of models