Over the past decade, neuroproteomics has shed light on the molecular features of schizophrenia by depicting biological processes involved with its establishment, maintenance and treatment. These studies have also pointed to potential biomarkers applicable to diagnosis and medication monitoring. Edited by a leader in the field of neuroproteomics with contributions from subject experts, this new volume will address recent findings and compile evidence from difference perspectives-such as human samples, animal models, pluripotent stem cell-derived in vitro pre-clinical models-and provide findings to inform the development of innovative future treatment strategies. This volume will be useful for a broad audience of researchers and professionals, including biologists, neurologists, psychiatrists, analytical chemists, and pharmacists, among others.

Mammalian skin, skeletal muscles and connective tissue contain a wide variety of miniature sensory receptors which respond to mechanical stimuli. The monograph describes different types of these mechanoreceptors, such as mucles spindles, tendon organs, Pacinian corpuscles, tactile digital corpuscles etc., and outlines the role of sensory nerve terminals in their development and maintenance.

This book reviews all major models and hypotheses concerning the mechanisms supposed to underlie the process of navigation in vertebrates.

It covers data on all major model groups of vertebrates studied in the context of animal navigation, such as migratory birds, homing pigeons, sea turtles, subterranean mammals and some migratory fish species. Some other - less studied - groups, e.g., whales, have also been touched.

The first part of the book describes different sources of navigational information, with their specific navigational mechanisms known or supposed to be employed by animals for navigational goals. The second part discusses possible functions of these mechanisms in different vertebrates and in the context of different navigational tasks, ranging from short-range navigation, often performed by animals within as small an area as several square meters, to long-distance global-scale migrations performed by many birds and some sea turtles during their lifespan.

This volume provides an overview of the latest methods used to study neuronal function with all-optical experimental approaches, where light is used for both stimulation and monitoring of neuronal activity. The chapters in this book cover topics over a broad range, from fundamental background information in both physiology and optics in the context of all-optical neurophysiology experiments, to the design principles and hardware implementation of optical methods used for photoactivation and imaging. In the Neuromethods series style, chapters include the kind of detail and key advice from the specialists needed to get successful results in your laboratory. Comprehensive and cutting-edge, All-Optical Methods to Study Neuronal Function is a valuable resource for researchers in various disciplines such as physics, engineering, and neuroscience. This book will serve as a guide to establish useful references for groups starting out in this field, and provide insight on the optical systems, actuators, and sensors. This is an open access book.

Dementia diseases are the most common cause of severe mental deterioration in the world today, and expected changes in the population structure will inevitably result in a gradually increasing occurrence of dementia. One of the primary symptoms of dementia diseases is severe memory dysfunction. Knowledge about the ways in which dementia diseases affect memory increases our knowledge about the relationship between brain structures and memory functions, is imperative for early clinical diagnosis, and forms a basis for sound behavioral and pharmacological intervention. While the memory impairment in dementia has been known for more than 2000 years, the nature of this impairment is not yet completely understood. Research in this area has not, until quite recently, utilized theoretical and methodological advances from basic cognitive psychology. This volume gives a comprehensive treatment of this new and increasingly developing field of inquiry.

Bringing together neuroscientists, social scientists, and humanities scholars in cross-disciplinary exploration of the topic of cultural memory, this collection moves from seminal discussions of the latest findings in neuroscience to variegated, specific case studies of social practices and artistic expressions. This volume highlights what can be gained from drawing on broad interdisciplinary contexts in pursuing scholarly projects involving cultural memory and associated topics. The collection argues that contemporary evolutionary science, in conjunction with studies interconnecting cognition, affect, and emotion, as well as research on socially mediated memory, provides innovatively interdisciplinary contexts for viewing current work on how cultural and social environments influence gene expression and neural circuitry. Building on this foundation, Cultural Memory turns to the exploration of the psychological processes and social contexts through which cultural memory is shaped, circulated, revised, and contested. It investigates how various modes of cultural expression-architecture, cuisine, poetry, film, and fiction-reconfigure shared conceptualizing patterns and affectively mediated articulations of identity and value. Each chapter showcases research from a wide range of fields and presents diverse interdisciplinary contexts for future scholarship. As cultural memory is a subject that invites interdisciplinary perspectives and is relevant to studying cultures around the world, of every era, this collection addresses an international readership comprising scholars from the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences, from advanced undergraduates to senior researchers.

This volume provides backgrounds, methods, and troubleshooting for the analysis of circadian rhythms at the molecular, cellular, and organismal levels in vertebrates and invertebrates, and also covers light input, sleep, circalunar rhythms, and seasonal rhythms. The chapters in this book discuss behavioral and biological testing, histochemistry, single-cell imaging, electrophysiology, photochemistry, genetics, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, systems biology, chemical biology, and mathematical modeling. In the Neuromethods series style, chapters include experimental detail and key advice from the specialists needed to successfully carry out these methods in your laboratory. Cutting-edge and practical, Circadian Clocks is a valuable resource for all researchers seeking to learn about established and novel methods in chronobiology, and the molecular mechanisms of the rhythmic control of physiology and behavior.

This volume covers a wide range of model systems from invertebrate to humans and in vitro and in vivo. Chapters detail methods on squid, aplysia, xenopus, mouse in vivo, ex vivo, rodent primary neurons, human-derived neurons, zebrafish, drosophila in vivo, primary neurons, c. elegans, and in vitro reconstitution assays.Written in the format of the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, each chapter includes an introduction to the topic, lists necessary materials and reagents, includes tips on troubleshooting and known pitfalls, and step-by-step, readily reproducible protocols. Authoritative and cutting-edge, Axonal Transport: Methods and Protocols aims to further our understanding of the trafficking of cellular components in the nervous system leading to the advancement of basic knowledge that underlines the cell biology of the neuron. The chapters " Live imaging of RNA Transport and Translation in Xenopus Retinal Axons, Retrograde Axonal Transport of Neurotrophins in Basal Forebrain Cholinergic Neurons, Assessment of Mitochondrial Trafficking as A Surrogate of Fast Axonal Transport in Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Derived Spinal Motor Neurons, Drosophila Primary Neuronal Cultures as a Useful Cellular Model to Study and Image Axonal Transport, and In vitro Reconstitution of Kinesin-Based, Axonal mRNA Transport" are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com

Behavioral neuroendocrinologists are interested in the interactions between hormones and behaviors. This unique book tracks the development of behavioral neuroendocrinology from the first recognized paper in the field by Arnold Berthold in 1849 to the major contributors of the past century. It traces the history and development of the field by exploring the women and men who conducted the studies that revealed these hormone-behavioral relationships. Most chapters are written by the individuals who knew these pioneers best, and describe their stories and discuss the ways in which their work has shaped the field. Now is the perfect time for this book. The field is burgeoning and interest in the development of theoretical perspectives is thriving. Moreover, although this field was dominated by men early on, it has become a field with near sexual parity among its faculty, society membership, and leadership, and thus serves as an example of equitable science, training, and advocacy.

In light of the potential novel applications of neurotechnologies in psychiatry and the current debate on moral bioenhancement, this book outlines the reasons why more conceptual work is needed to inform the scientific and medical community, and society at large, about the implications of moral bioenhancement before a possible, highly hypothetical at this point, broad acceptance, and potential implementation in areas such as psychiatry (e.g., treatment of psychopathy), or as a measure to prevent crime in society. The author does not negate the possibility of altering or manipulating moral behavior through technological means. Rather he argues that the scope of interventions is limited because the various options available to "enhance morality" improve, or simply manipulate, some elements of moral behavior and not the moral agent per se in the various elements constitutive of moral agency. The concept of Identity Integrity is suggested as a potential framework for a responsible use of neurotechnologies in psychiatry to avoid human beings becoming orderers and orderables of technological manipulations.

This book describes the state-of-the-art of treatment of schizophrenia and reflects its development in 22 chapters written by leading authorities in the field

The dangers of illegal drugs are well known and rarely disputed, but how harmful are alcohol and tobacco by comparison? What are we missing by banning medical research into magic mushrooms, LSD and cannabis? Can they be sources of valuable treatments? The second edition of Drugs without the hot air looks at the science to allow anyone to make rational decisions based on objective evidence, asking: *What is addiction? Is there an addictive personality? *What is the role of cannabis in treating epilepsy? *How harmful is vaping? *How can psychedelics treat depression? *Where is the opioid crisis taking us?

This book presents neuromorphic cognitive systems from a learning and memory-centered perspective. It illustrates how to build a system network of neurons to perform spike-based information processing, computing, and high-level cognitive tasks. It is beneficial to a wide spectrum of readers, including undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers who are interested in neuromorphic computing and neuromorphic engineering, as well as engineers and professionals in industry who are involved in the design and applications of neuromorphic cognitive systems, neuromorphic sensors and processors, and cognitive robotics. The book formulates a systematic framework, from the basic mathematical and computational methods in spike-based neural encoding, learning in both single and multi-layered networks, to a near cognitive level composed of memory and cognition. Since the mechanisms for integrating spiking neurons integrate to formulate cognitive functions as in the brain are little understood, studies of neuromorphic cognitive systems are urgently needed. The topics covered in this book range from the neuronal level to the system level. In the neuronal level, synaptic adaptation plays an important role in learning patterns. In order to perform higher-level cognitive functions such as recognition and memory, spiking neurons with learning abilities are consistently integrated, building a system with encoding, learning and memory functionalities. The book describes these aspects in detail.

Daily rhythms are a ubiquitous feature of living systems. Generally, these rhythms are not just passive consequences of cyclic fluctuations in the environment, but instead originate within the organism. In mammals, including humans, the master pacemaker controlling 24-hour rhythms is localized in the suprachiasmatic nuclei of the hypothalamus (SCN). This circadian clock is responsible for the temporal organization of a wide variety of functions, ranging from sleep and food intake, to physiological measures such as body temperature, heart rate and hormone release. Moreover, accumulating evidence suggests that dysfunction of the circadian rhythms due to genetic mutations or environmental factors (i.e., jet-lag or shift work) contribute to the development of many pathologies, including sleep disorders, mood and affective disorders such as major depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, as well as the risk of metabolic and cardiovascular disorders.

The prefrontal cortex is known to play important roles for performing a variety of higher cognitive functions. Among regions of the prefrontal cortex, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex plays the most important roles for these functions. This book focuses on functions of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, summarizes research results obtained mainly by non-human primate studies, and describes neural mechanisms of executive functions that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex participates. First, to understand the feature of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and how its function has been understood, anatomical and functional features of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and historical overview of prefrontal functions are described. To understand functions of the prefrontal cortex and neural mechanisms of executive functions, working memory is an important concept and sustained activation during the memory period of working memory tasks is known as a neural mechanism of working memory. Therefore, this book describes features of sustained memory-related activity based on neurophysiological results obtained in the prefrontal cortex and how memory-related activity contributes to executive functions including control of attention, inhibitory control, task management, and planning. And further, this book describes how the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex contributes to neural mechanisms for sensory and motor processing, memory control in multi-task performance, decision-making, metacognition, and top-down control. Thus, this book provides important information regarding neural mechanisms of dorsolateral prefrontal functions to neuroscientists and helps to plan further investigation to understand prefrontal functions in primates and human subjects.

The 1st World Congress on Geriatrics and Neurodegenerative Disease Research (GeNeDis 2014), will focus on recent advances in geriatrics and neurodegeneration, ranging from basic science to clinical and pharmaceutical developments and will provide an international forum for the latest scientific discoveries, medical practices and care initiatives. Advanced information technologies will be discussed concerning the various research, implementation and policy, as well as European and global issues in the funding of long-term care and medico-social policies regarding elderly people. GeNeDis 2014 takes place in Corfu Greece, 10-13 April 2014. This volume focuses on the sessions from the conference on computational biology and bioinformatics.

This volume is based on a conference held to examine what is known about cognitive behaviors and brain structure and function in three syndromes and to evaluate the usefulness of such models. The goal of this endeavor is to add to the knowledge base of cognitive neuroscience within a developmental framework. Most of what is known about the neurological basis of cognitive function in humans has been learned from studies of central nervous system trauma or disease in adults. Certain neurodevelopmental disorders affect the central nervous system in unique ways by producing specific as opposed to generalized cognitive deficit. Studies of these disorders using neurobiological and behavioral techniques can yield new insights into the localization of cognitive function and the developmental course of atypical cognitive profiles.
The focus of this book is a discussion of the multidisciplinary research findings from studies of autism, and Williams and Turner syndromes. The approaches, methods, techniques, and findings reported are at the cutting edge of neuroscience research on complex behavior patterns and their neural substrates. Each disorder is accompanied by some degree of general cognitive impairment or mental retardation. Of greater interest are the atypical deficits in which a cognitive function is spared, such as language in Williams syndrome, or is disproportionately depressed as are spatial discrimination skills and visual-motor coordination in Turner syndrome. Drastically reduced or seemingly absent language capabilities and little interaction with other people characterize the core autism syndrome. A comprehensive and critical discussion of appropriate statistical techniques is made vivid by examples given from studies of small groups or single subjects in neurolinguistics and related fields.

A number of diseases and conditions that occur primarily in remote rural or poor urban areas of low-income countries have traditionally been neglected by the neuroscience research community. These diseases and conditions affect the nervous system directly (sometimes with lethal consequences) and/or are associated with severe neurological sequels such as epilepsy, cognitive deficits, and sleep disruption. Several diseases also have the effect of promoting poverty by leaving sufferers unable to lead economically productive lives due to cognitive and behavioral disturbances or severe stigmatization. The pathogenesis of neural dysfunction in the diseases addressed in this book and their sequels remains unclear. Neuroscience of Neglected Diseases and Conditions makes available much needed information about how these diseases affect the human nervous system as well as to promote interest in further research. Further research into neglected diseases and conditions will uncover information that sheds light on more general topics of interest to the neuroscience research community.

This book provides a brief but accessible introduction to a set of related, mathematical ideas that have proved useful in understanding the brain and behaviour. If you record the eye movements of a group of people watching a riverside scene then some will look at the river, some will look at the barge by the side of the river, some will look at the people on the bridge, and so on, but if a duck takes off then everybody will look at it. How come the brain is so adept at processing such biological objects? In this book it is shown that brains are especially suited to exploiting the geometric properties of such objects. Central to the geometric approach is the concept of a manifold, which extends the idea of a surface to many dimensions. The manifold can be specified by collections of n-dimensional data points or by the paths of a system through state space. Just as tangent planes can be used to analyse the local linear behaviour of points on a surface, so the extension to tangent spaces can be used to investigate the local linear behaviour of manifolds. The majority of the geometric techniques introduced are all about how to do things with tangent spaces. Examples of the geometric approach to neuroscience include the analysis of colour and spatial vision measurements and the control of eye and arm movements. Additional examples are used to extend the applications of the approach and to show that it leads to new techniques for investigating neural systems. An advantage of following a geometric approach is that it is often possible to illustrate the concepts visually and all the descriptions of the examples are complemented by comprehensively captioned diagrams. The book is intended for a reader with an interest in neuroscience who may have been introduced to calculus in the past but is not aware of the many insights obtained by a geometric approach to the brain. Appendices contain brief reviews of the required background knowledge in neuroscience and calculus.

Integrated Education and Learning aims to discuss novel approaches to offer integrated educational methods. Within the last few years, educational techniques have evolved to favour critical thinking and improve learning skills. This volume links thinking and learning in educational settings and discusses diverse mechanisms that influence this association; including meta-cognitive capacity, memory, cognitive style, conceptual approaches, digitalization, teaching approaches, echoing, and questioning. It embraces this discussion at all levels, from early childhood education to higher education. This book also includes teaching tips for creating a learning environment that cultivates students' creativity and critical thinking on both online platforms and live-in-classroom. The book follows discussing the merits of an integrated educational paradigm that will help develop highly intellectual thinkers and will promote modern values to face current and future challenges. Finally, the book shows a balance between learning and education to enhance creativity, critical thinking and social skills.

* Investigates new findings on the predictive brain and what these insights mean for autism and current interventions. * The book has already sold over 2000 copies within 7 months of publishing in Dutch * Peter Vermeulen has established himself as an expert in autism writing, his last books selling thousands of copies and being translated into 10 languages and 5 languages each.

In Motor Activity and Movement Disorders thirteen state-of-the-art articles explicate forefront research methodologies for measuring and interpreting motor activity in animals, as well as their applications to preclinical and clinical research involving motor disorders. The contributors emphasize motor asymmetries, turning behavior, and dyskinetic movements. They also present a variety of quantitative approaches designed to assess specific aspects of motor activity and illustrate numerous computerized measuring techniques that permit detailed and objective approaches to quantifying motor behavior.
Motor Activity and Movement Disorders will contribute to a greater understanding of brain-behavior relationships through its focus on methodology and its application to current animal models and to human disorders.

This volume provides researchers with up-to-date protocols and takes a close look at current research and promising applications. Optogenetics: Methods and Protocols contains a collection of recently developed technical protocols on optogenetic applications in neuroscience, brain mapping, treatment of neurological disorders, and restoration of visual function. Several introductory and discussion chapters offer a wide overview about sources and diversity of optogenetic tools, design strategies, and potential applications in other fields like plant research. Written in the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series format, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Cutting edge and thorough, Optogenetic: Methods and Protocols, delivers an interdisciplinary view of optogenetic applications and its potential to develop as a valuable tool for basic research, as well as biomedical and biotechnological applications.

This book provides an overview of the biology and biochemistry of peroxisomes, and discusses the contribution of these organelles to peroxisomal and neurodegenerative diseases. It begins with a detailed introduction to the biogenesis and metabolic functions of peroxisomes, and highlights their role in oxidative stress and in lipid metabolism such as fatty acid oxidation. The following chapters focus on the molecular and clinical aspects of peroxisomal disorders caused by defects in peroxisomal function. In particular, the biological aspects of peroxisomal biogenesis disorders such as Zellweger syndrome and Heimler syndrome are discussed. This includes their underlying genetic causes as well as the biochemical and metabolic defects associated with the disorders. In addition, several chapters cover recent observations suggesting an association between peroxisomal dysfunction and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Multiple Sclerosis and other degenerative cerebellar pathologies. The final section of the book discusses important cell and animal models for studying the role of peroxisomes in human diseases and presents current therapeutic strategies for their treatment. This book deals with a highly topical subject that is at the heart of current research, and represents a valuable contribution for all students and researchers who want to understand the complex biology of peroxisomes and their role in human diseases.