This book focuses on a central question in the field of complex systems: Given a fluctuating (in time or space), uni- or multi-variant sequentially measured set of experimental data (even noisy data), how should one analyse non-parametrically the data, assess underlying trends, uncover characteristics of the fluctuations (including diffusion and jump contributions), and construct a stochastic evolution equation? Here, the term "non-parametrically" exemplifies that all the functions and parameters of the constructed stochastic evolution equation can be determined directly from the measured data. The book provides an overview of methods that have been developed for the analysis of fluctuating time series and of spatially disordered structures. Thanks to its feasibility and simplicity, it has been successfully applied to fluctuating time series and spatially disordered structures of complex systems studied in scientific fields such as physics, astrophysics, meteorology, earth science, engineering, finance, medicine and the neurosciences, and has led to a number of important results. The book also includes the numerical and analytical approaches to the analyses of complex time series that are most common in the physical and natural sciences. Further, it is self-contained and readily accessible to students, scientists, and researchers who are familiar with traditional methods of mathematics, such as ordinary, and partial differential equations. The codes for analysing continuous time series are available in an R package developed by the research group Turbulence, Wind energy and Stochastic (TWiSt) at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Joachim Peinke. This package makes it possible to extract the (stochastic) evolution equation underlying a set of data or measurements.

Multisensory Perception: From Laboratory to Clinic surveys the current state of knowledge on multisensory processes, synthesizing information from diverse streams of research and defining hypotheses and questions to direct future work. Reflecting the nature of the field, the book is interdisciplinary, comprising the findings and views of writers with diverse backgrounds and varied methods, including psychophysical, neuroanatomical, neurophysiological and neuroimaging approaches. Sections cover basic principles, specific interactions between the senses, the topic of crossmodal correspondences between particular sensory attributes, the related topic of synesthesia, and the clinic.

There are countless books on sex and an endless fascination with the subject. Varieties and vagaries of sexual desire have long been documented, but there has been little engagement with cutting-edge scientific research to uncover the biological and psychological bases of sexual desire. Here, Frederick Toates uses the insights of modern science to show how a wide range of desire-related phenomena - fantasy, novelty-seeking, sexual addiction, sex-drug interactions, fetishes, voyeurism, and sexual violence and killing - start to make sense. For example, the role of the brain's neurochemical dopamine can now be much better understood in terms of wanting, and a distinction between wanting and liking has been established. Also, an understanding of the layered organization of the brain, sometimes described as hierarchical, can be used to explain temptation and conflict. This is a fascinating book with great social relevance to society and its problems with sexuality.

In the wake of fresh allegations that personal data of Facebook users have been illegally used to influence the outcome of the US general election and the Brexit vote, the debate over manipulation of social Big Data continues to gain more momentum. Cyber Influence and Cognitive Threats addresses various emerging challenges in response to cybersecurity, examining cognitive applications in decision-making, behaviour and basic human interaction. The book examines the role of psychology in cybersecurity by addressing each factor involved in the process: hackers, targets, cybersecurity practitioners, and the wider social context in which these groups operate. Cyber Influence and Cognitive Threats covers a variety of topics including information systems, psychology, sociology, human resources, leadership, strategy, innovation, law, finance and others.

Gyoergy Buzsaki's The Brain from Inside Out examines why the outside-in framework for understanding brain function have become stagnate and points to new directions for understanding neural function. Building upon the success of Rhythms of the Brain, Professor Buzsaki presents the brain as a foretelling device that interacts with its environment through action and the examination of action's consequence. Instead of a brain that represents the world, consider that it is initially filled with nonsense patterns, all of which are gibberish until grounded by action-based interactions. By matching these nonsense "words" to the outcomes of action, they acquire meaning. The Brain from Inside Out explains why our brain is not an information-absorbing coding device, as it is often portrayed, but a venture seeking explorer constantly controlling the body to test hypotheses. Our brain does not process information: it creates it.

The presentation and interpretation of visual information is essential to almost every activity in human life and most endeavors of modern technology. This book examines the current status of what is known (and not known) about human vision, how human observers interpret visual data, and how to present such data to facilitate their interpretation and use. Written by experts who are able to cross disciplinary boundaries, the book provides an educational pathway through several models of human vision; describes how the visual response is analyzed and quantified; presents current theories of how the human visual response is interpreted; discusses the cognitive responses of human observers; and examines such applications as space exploration, manufacturing, surveillance, earth and air sciences, and medicine. The book is intended for everyone with an undergraduate-level background in science or engineering with an interest in visual science. This second edition has been brought up to date throughout and contains a new chapter on "Virtual reality and augmented reality in medicine."

Genes, Brain Function, and Behavior offers a concise description of the nervous system that processes sensory input and initiates motor movements. It reviews how behaviors are defined and measured, and how experts decide when a behavior is perturbed and in need of treatment. Behavioral disorders that are clearly related to a defect in a specific gene are reviewed, and the challenges of understanding complex traits such as intelligence, autism and schizophrenia that involve numerous genes and environmental factors are explored. New methods of altering genes offer hope for treating or even preventing difficulties that arise in our genes. This book explains what genes are, what they do in the nervous system, and how this impacts both brain function and behavior.

Physics of Biological Action and Perception helps researchers interested in exploring biological motor control from a physics or alternative viewpoint perspective. The book introduces the idea of parametric control as a distinguishing feature of living systems. Sections cover how the CNS creates stable percepts based on fuzzy and continuously changing signals from numerous receptors and the variable processes related to ongoing actions. The author also develops the idea of control with referent coordinates to stability of salient variables in fields typically united under the label of "cognition." Examples of this include communication (how the gist of a message is preserved despite variability of phrases), thought processes (how one can solve a mental problem via different logical routes), and playing chess (how one selects an optimal move given a position on the board). The book is written for researchers, instructors, clinicians and other professionals in all the fields related to biological movement and perception.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of our current understanding of binge eating, which is characterized by the uncontrollable consumption of large amounts of food in a discrete time period. Written by experts on eating disorders, it first introduces the phenotype of binge eating, including its epidemiology and assessment. It then describes the underlying neurobiological alterations, drawing on cutting-edge animal models and human studies to do so. In addition, it extensively discusses current treatment models, including medication, psychotherapy, self-interventions and disease prevention. Lastly, an outlook on the future research agenda rounds out the coverage. Given binge eating's current status as an under-researched symptom, but one shared across many eating disorders, this book provides an up-to-date, integrative and comprehensive synthesis of recent research and offers a valuable reference for scientists and clinicians alike.

In Vitro Neurochemical Techniques is one of three volumes that rep- sent an update of the original Volume 1 of Neuromefkods, General Neu- chemical Techniques The expansion to three volumes was necessitated by the rapidly increasing number of techniques being used by neuroscrentists and the general tendency of neuroscience research to become more multidisciplrnary and collaborative in recent years. The two companion volumes are concerned primarily with In Vwo Neurometkods in one case, and with Cell Neurobiology Techniques in the other case. Even with three volumes, the coverage of General Neuvometkods is obviously not exhaustive. We have attempted to cover those techniques that seem particularly popular in multidisciplinary neuroscience research. Though some important techniques may have been omitted, we believe that most of these have been covered in detail in other recent volumes of Neurometkods or will be the subjects of upcommg volumes The editors anticipate that these volumes will prove unusually useful to neuroscientists across a wide range of fields-e.g., neurochemistry, neuropsychopharmacology, neurology, psychiatry, and neuroanatomy. Each chapter has been written by well-known neuroscientists with - tive research programs. Experienced researchers in the specific areas treated will appreciate the present updates on those topics, and neuros- entists expecting their research programs to become more multidisciplinary or to expand into new areas of research should find these volumes of enormous value, particularly those sections offering protocols with u- ful hints about the advantages and potential pitfalls of a particular te- nique.

Mathematical Modelling in Motor Neuroscience: State of the Art and Translation to the Clinic. Ocular Motor Plant and Gaze Stabilization Mechanisms, Volume 248, the latest release in the Progress in Brain Research series, highlights new advances in the field, with this new volume presenting interesting chapters on a variety of topics, including Mathematical modeling in clinical and basic motor neuroscience, The math of medicine - the computational lessons learned from the human disease, Mathematical models - an extension of the clinician's mind, From differential equation to linear control systems: the study of the VOR, Closed lop and nonlinear systems, State-space equations and learning, Integrators and optimal control, and much more.

This volume provides in-depth descriptions and discussion of clinical trial designs based on novel data analysis of high-quality trials for 11 different neurological conditions in order to ultimately improve the quality of care in neurology. Some of the conditions discussed in this book are stroke, traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy, and tumors of the central nervous system. In Neuromethods series style, chapters include the kind of detail and key advice from the specialists needed to get successful results in your research center and clinical investigation. Thorough and comprehensive, Clinical Trials in Neurology is a valuable guide for individuals in the research, education, and clinical practice fields, specifically in the fields of medicine, physical therapy, occupational therapy, nursing, and public health. This volume is also an important resource for clinicians aiming to improve their understanding in methodology of clinical trials.

This volume contains up-to-date contributions written by leading experts in the role played by various microorganisms in psychiatric and neurological illness. The initial chapters present an evolutionary framework for the impact of microorganisms on behavior. This is followed by historical and epidemiological perspectives of the role of viruses in psychiatric illness. Subsequent chapters focus on different classes of microorganisms and psychiatric illnesses and emphasize diverse research approaches ranging from preclinical models to therapeutic interventions.

Rarely do research paths diverge and converge as neatly and productively as the paths exemplified by the two efforts contained in this book. The story behind these researches is worth recounting. The story, as far as I'm concerned, starts back in the Fall of1976, when John Laird and Paul Rosenbloom, as new graduate students in computer science at Carnegie-Mellon University, joined the Instructible Production System (IPS) project (Rychener, Forgy, Langley, McDermott, Newell, Ramakrishna, 1977; Rychener & Newell, 1978). In those days, production systems were either small or special or both (Newell, 1973; Shortliffe, 1976). Mike Rychener had just completed his thesis (Rychener, 1976), showing how production systems could effectively and perspicuously program the full array of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, by creating versions of Studellt (done in an earlier study, Rychener 1975), EPAM, GPS, King-Pawn-King endgames, a toy-blocks problem solver, and a natural-language input system that connected to the blocks-world system.

Opioids are responsible for the vast majority of preventable deaths related to drug use, and opioid crisis is a serious international health problem. Opioids are also the mainstay in pain treatment and are invaluable tools in palliative care. The purpose of this book is to present an overview of the complex field of opioid pharmacology through evidence-based chapters in clear language backed up with sound scientific evidence, providing researchers and health professionals with a firm understanding of their effects and mechanisms of action. The authors present an overview of the history of opioids from ancient civilizations to the current opioid crisis, covering state-of-the-art advances on opioid-induced signal transduction, opioids in pain management, and the neuroinflammatory effects of opioids. Also discussed are opioid use disorders and their treatment. The authors also review the growing body of evidence of opioid effects on innate and adaptive immune responses, discussing the molecules involved in the crosstalk between opioids and innate immunity receptors to provide an updated view of those compounds as important regulators of inflammation and host defense against pathogens and damage. The overall purpose is to provide the reader with a deeper knowledge of this field despite the complexities associated with the existence of numerous ligands, receptor subtypes, and complex pharmacological profiles. To this end, the chapter authors are specialists in the field who also have extensive experience in teaching, hoping to lend their expertise in translating complex concepts into comprehensive and clear explanations.

Meditation, Volume 244, the latest release in the Progress in Brain Research series, highlights new advances in the field with this new volume presenting interesting chapters on The effect of meditation on attentional processes, State-trait influences of Vipassana meditation practice on P3 EEG dynamics, What could teachers learn from the neuroscience of self-experience?, Training Attention for Conscious Non-REM Sleep: The Yogic Technique of Yoga Nidra and Its Implications for Neuroscience Research, CNV and P3 modulations following sensorimotor training, Analytical meditation: a characterization of a reasoning-based meditation training, Buddhist meditation and the regulation of brain networks, Mindfulness-based Emotional Balance Training in Military Spouse, and more.

Arousal in Neurological and Psychiatric Diseases focuses on the dysregulation of arousal found in many neurological and psychiatric disorders. Chapters describe the physiology of each process, how it presents in each disorder, and the most appropriate treatment(s). The book also imparts the understanding of the RAS as a system that not only modulates waking, but also survival mechanisms, such as fight vs. flight responses and other reflexes. This book helps neuroscientists, sleep researchers, neurologists and psychiatrists understand the basic mechanisms that modulate arousal in health and disease. In addition, it promotes therapies that can alter the severity and manifestation of multiple disorders.

This volume handles in various perspectives the concept of function and the nature of functional explanations, topics much discussed since two major and conflicting accounts have been raised by Larry Wright and Robert Cummins papers in the 1970s. Here, both Wright s etiological theory of functions and Cummins systemic conception of functions are refined and elaborated in the light of current scientific practice, with papers showing how the etiological theory faces several objections and may in reply be revisited, while its counterpart became ever more sophisticated, as researchers discovered fresh applications for it.

Relying on a firm knowledge of the original positions and debates, this volume presents cutting-edge research evincing the complexities that today pertain in function theory in various sciences. Alongside original papers from authors central to the controversy, work by emerging researchers taking novel perspectives will add to the potential avenues to be followed in the future. Not only does the book adopt no a priori assumptions about the scope of functional explanations, it also incorporates material from several very different scientific domains, e.g. neurosciences, ecology, or technology.

In general, functions are implemented in mechanisms; and functional explanations in biology have often an essential relation with natural selection. These two basic claims set the stage for this book s coverage of investigations concerning both functional explanations, and the metaphysics of functions. It casts new light on these claims, by testing them through their confrontation with scientific developments in biology, psychology, and recent developments concerning the metaphysics of realization. Rather than debating a single theory of functions, this book presents the richness of philosophical issues raised by functional discourse throughout the various sciences. "

Provides a timely overview of critical advances in molecular and cellular neurobiology, covers key methodologies driving progress, and highlights key future directions for research on neuronal injury and neurodegeneration relevant to neuronal brain pathologies. The editors bring together contributions from internationally recognized workers in the field to provide an up to date account of how and why molecular and cellular neurobiology is such an important area for clinical neuroscience. Understanding the molecular aspects of a number of neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease for the purpose of improving patient management remains a major challenge of neurobiology be it from the basic or clinical perspective. A strategic evaluation of research contributions and the power of modern methods will help advance knowledge over the next years.

In this book, leading experts in the field review how circadian rhythms impact the brain. An essential function of mammalian life is the exploitation of the regularities provided by the 24-hour cycle of day and night. The development and evolution of circadian clock mechanisms have allowed us to optimally adapt our behavior and physiology to the external world. Not surprisingly, a growing body of evidence links the disruption of circadian rhythms by genetic, lifestyle and environmental factors to illnesses of the brain. In the first section of the book, readers will learn about the molecular and anatomic architecture of circadian function in mammals. The ways in which environmental disruptions and misalignments can influence such mechanisms and therefore impair brain function and health status are also addressed. In the second part, the focus shifts to those brain regions responsible for brain function and the body-wide regulation of circadian function. Amongst others, special attention is paid to the role of astrocytes and the brain's reward and hyprocretin / orexin systems. The book concludes with an extensive discussion on the consequences of circadian rhythm dysfunction. Several chapters present the latest findings on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder, drug abuse and mood disorders. Written by auhorities in the field, the book provides a state-of-the-art review of the latest findings on circadian clocks in the brain and highlights their potentially far-reaching impacts on our health and well-being. As such, it is essential reading for all neuroscientists and clinicians seeking to understand the intricate connections between circadian rhythms and brain health and illness.

This volume contains experimental approaches that are currently revolutionizing our understanding of the neurobiology of pain. The chapters cover many cutting-edge methods including the identification of gene expression profiles, transcriptomes or translatomes, from individual cells or defined groups of cells in rodents and primates; the electrophysiological investigation of human tissues, such as human dorsal root ganglion neurons; ways to assess modality response profiles of neurons using calcium imaging in vitro and in vivo; and somatosensory behaviors in rodents using high-speed videography and machine learning. In the Neuromethods series style, the chapters include detailed advice from specialists to obtain successful results in your laboratory. Cutting-edge and comprehensive, Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Pain: From Molecules to Neural Networks is a valuable resource for scientists and researchers interested in making impactful contributions to our understanding of pain.

Many organisms possess multiple sensory systems, such as vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. The possession of such multiple ways of sensing the world offers many benefits. These benefits arise not only because each modality can sense different aspects of the environment, but also because different senses can respond jointly to the same external object or event, thus enriching the overall experience-for example, looking at an individual while listening to them speak. However, combining the information from different senses also poses many challenges for the nervous system. In recent years, there has been dramatic progress in understanding how information from different sensory modalities gets integrated in order to construct useful representations of external space; and in how such multimodal representations constrain spatial attention. Such progress has involved numerous different disciplines, including neurophysiology, experimental psychology, neurological work with brain-damaged patients, neuroimaging studies, and computational modelling. This volume brings together the leading researchers from all these approaches, to present the first integrative overview of this central topic in cognitive neuroscience.

The treatment of pain and scientific pursuits to understand the mechanisms underlying pain raise many ethical, legal, and social issues. For the first time, this edited volume brings together content experts in the fields of pain, pediatrics, neuroscience, brain imaging, bioethics, health humanities, and the law to provide insight into the timely topic of pain neuroethics. This landmark volume of the state of the art exploration of pain neuroethics will be a must read for those interested in the ethical issues in pain research, treatment, and management.

Sound and Action in Music Performance addresses how auditory feedback influences the planning and execution of our movements. Focusing specifically on auditory feedback in music, including instrumental and vocal production, the book also gives substantial coverage to its role in speech. Both of these behaviors are the primary means by which people communicate their thoughts and feelings through the auditory modality, with auditory feedback being critical in each case. The book proposes that the role of auditory feedback emerges from the broader theme of coordination as our brain coordinates planned actions with concurrent perceptual events, including auditory feedback and other intrusive sounds. Critically reviewing the existing literature and proposing hypotheses for future research, this book tackles a topic that has intrigued researchers for decades.

In the twenty-first century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that discovered vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, quack cures and conspiracy theorizing?

In Rationality, Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply an irrational species - cavemen out of time fatally cursed with biases, fallacies and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives and set the benchmarks for rationality itself. Instead, he explains, we think in ways that suit the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we have built up over millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, causal inference, and decision-making under uncertainty. These tools are not a standard part of our educational curricula, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book - until now.

Rationality matters. It leads to better choices in our lives and in the public sphere, and is the ultimate driver of social justice and moral progress. Brimming with insight and humour, Rationality will enlighten, inspire and empower.