Machinery of the Mind: Data, Theory, and Speculations about Higher Brain Function

ISBN-13: 9781475710854 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 566 str.

Pope John XXIII; XXI John

Opis

In the spring of 1987, I was in Havana, Cuba, where I was participating in planning a large-scale longitudinal study of the neurophysiological, neurochemical, and behavioral characteristics of cohorts of patients with cerebrovascular disease, depression, senile dementia, schizophrenia, or learning disabilities; and also part of this study were their first-degree blood relatives. This study was the outgrowth of a long-term project on the practical application of computer methods for the evaluation of brain electrical activity related to anatomical integrity, maturational development, and sensory, perceptual;--and cognitive processes, especially in chil- dren. For many years, that project had been supported by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the National Scientific Research Center of Cuba (CNIC), and the Ministries of Public Health and of Education of Cuba. Since its inception, I had served as a technical advisor to the UNDP project. When the project began, I became acquainted with Dr. Jose M. Miyar Barrueco, who was at that time the Rector of the Medical School of the University of Havana. Because of his keen interest in the new computer technology and its potential utility in developing countries, we met from time to time during my visits. These occasional meetings continued after he became Secretary of the Cuban Council of State, so that he could remain apprised of progress and problems with which he might help.

Spis treści

1 Forebrain Commissures and the Unity of Mind.- 2 On the Fallacy of Assigning an Origin to Consciousness.- 3 Representation of Information in the Brain.- 4 Spatiotemporal Properties of the ? Rhythm.- 5 Strange Attractor EEG as Sign of Cognitive Function.- 6 Cellular and Network Mechanisms in the Kindling Model of Epilepsy: The Role of GABAergic Inhibition and the Emergence of Strange Attractors.- 7 A Synergetic Approach to Visual Perception.- 8 The Eye of Man, the Brain of the Physicist: A System’s Approach to Vision.- 9 Electrophysiology of Visual Attention.- 10 Brain Electric Microstates and Cognition: The Atoms of Thought.- 11 New Prospects in Neurolinguistics.- 12 Event-Related Desynchronization (ERD) Correlated with Cognitive Activity.- 13 Making Sense Out of Words and Faces: ERP Evidence for Multiple Memory Systems.- 14 Spatial Memory in Animals.- 15 Visual Representation and Short-Term Memory in Inferotemporal Cortex.- 16 Gangliosides, Learning, and Behavior.- 17 Neurophysiological Study of Animals’ Subjective Experience.- 18 Thoughts on the Role of the Mind in Recovery from Brain Damage.- 19 Analysis of Electroencephalographic Maturation.- 20 Brain Stimulation of Comatose Patients: A Chaos and Nonlinear Dynamics Approach.- 21 The Statistical Analysis of Brain Images.- 22 The Physical Basis of Electrophysiological Brain Imaging: Exploratory Techniques for Source Localization and Waveshape Analysis of Functional Components of Electrical Brain Activity.- 23 Neurometric Functional Imaging: I. Subtyping of Schizophrenia.- 24 Neurometric Functional Imaging II. Cross-Spectral Coherence at Rest and During Mental Activity.- 25 Magnetic Fields of the Brain Resulting From Normal and Pathological Function.- 26 Dynamic Functional Mapping of the Brain Cortex by Its Infrared Radiation.- 27 Brain Imaging with Positron Emission Tomography (PET): Using a Method for Reformatting Three-Dimensional Physiological Data into a Standardized Anatomy.- Index of Cited Names.