Allosteric Modulation of G Protein-Coupled Receptors reviews fundamental information on G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and allosteric modulation, presenting original research in the area and collectively providing a comprehensive description of key issues in GPCR allosteric modulation. The book provides background on core concepts of molecular pharmacology while also introducing the most important advances and studies in the area. It also discusses key methodologies. This is an essential book for researchers and advanced students engaged in pharmacology, toxicology and pharmaceutical sciences training and research. Many of the GPCR-targeted drugs released in the past decade have specifically worked via allosteric mechanisms. Unlike direct orthosteric-acting compounds that occupy a similar receptor site to that of endogenous ligands, allosteric modulators alter GPCR-dependent signaling at a site apart from the endogenous ligand. Recent methodological and analytical advances have greatly improved our ability to understand the signaling mechanisms of GPCRs. We now know that allostery is a common regulatory mechanism for all GPCRs and not - as we once believed - unique to a few receptor subfamilies.

Neuroscience has made considerable progress in figuring out how the brain works. We know much about the molecular-genetic and biochemical underpinnings of sensory and motor functions. Recent neuroimaging work has opened the door to investigating the neural underpinnings of higher-order cognitive functions, such as memory, attention, and even free will. In these types of investigations, researchers apply specific stimuli to induce neural activity in the brain and look for the function in question. However, there may be more to the brain and its neuronal states than the changes in activity we induce by applying particular external stimuli. In Volume 2 of Unlocking the Brain, Georg Northoff addresses consciousness by hypothesizing about the relationship between particular neuronal mechanisms and the various phenomenal features of consciousness. Northoff puts consciousness in the context of the resting state of the brain thereby delivering a new point of view to the debate that permits very interesting insights into the nature of consciousness. Moreover, he describes and discusses detailed findings from different branches of neuroscience including single cell data, animal data, human imaging data, and psychiatric findings. This yields a unique and novel picture of the brain, and will have a major and lasting impact on neuroscientists working in neuroscience, psychiatry, and related fields.

The nematode C. elegans is one of the most important model organisms for understanding neurobiology. Its completely mapped neural connectome of 302 neurons and fully characterized and stereotyped development have made it a prototype for understanding nervous system structure, development, and function. Fifty-six out of C. elegans' total of 959 somatic cells are classified as neuroglia. Although research on worm glia has lagged behind studies focused on neurons, there has been a steep upswing in interest during the past decade. Information arising from the recent burst of research on worm glia supports the idea that C. elegans will continue to be an important animal model for understanding glial cell biology. Since the developmental lineage of all cells was mapped, each glial cell in C. elegans is known by a specific name and has research associated with it. We list and describe the glia of the hermaphrodite form of C. elegans and summarize research findings relating to each glial cell. We hope this lecture provides an informative overview of worm glia to accompany the excellent and freely available online resources available to the worm research community.

With treatment approaches and the field of neuro-oncology neuroimaging changing rapidly, this third edition of the Handbook of Neuro-Oncology Neuroimaging is very relevant to those in the field, providing a single-source, comprehensive, reference handbook of the most up-to-date clinical and technical information regarding the application of neuroimaging techniques to brain tumor and neuro-oncology patients. This new volume will have updates on all of the material from the second edition, and in addition features several new important chapters covering diverse topics such as imaging for the use of Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy, advanced imaging techniques in radiation therapy, therapeutic treatment fields, response assessment in clinical trials, surgical planning of neoplastic disease of the spine, and more. Sections first overview neuro-oncological disorders before delving into the physics and basic science of neuroimaging and great focus on CT and MRI. The book then focuses on advances in the neuroimaging of brain tumors and neuroimaging of specific tumor types. There is also discussion of neuroimaging of other neuro-oncological syndromes. This book will serve as a resource of background information to neuroimaging researchers and basic scientists with an interest in brain tumors and neuro-oncology.

MRI Atlas of the Infant Rat Brain: Brain Segmentation features an entirely new coronal, sagittal and horizontal set of tissue cut in regular 9 m intervals with accompanying photographs of MRI data and color drawings of selected brain regions in the three planes. The use of the single brain allows for greater consistency between sections, while color masking offers advances in manual segmentation techniques with increased refinement in the definition of brain areas. Readers will benefit from uniform and consistent manual tissue segmentation of MRI data in an infant rat brain. This volume provides readers the first infant rat brain MRI atlas and a valuable resource in research analyses of the developing brain for structural and functional MRI analyses.

Modern populations are superficially aware of media potentials and paraphernalia, but recent events have emphasized the general ignorance of the sentient media. Advertising has long been suspected of cognitive manipulation, but emergent issues of political hacking, false news, disinformation campaigns, lies, neuromarketing, misuse of social media, pervasive surveillance, and cyber warfare are presently challenging the world as we know it. Media Models to Foster Collective Human Coherence in the PSYCHecology is an assemblage of pioneering research on the methods and applications of video games designed as a new genre of dream analogs. Highlighting topics including virtual reality, personality profiling, and dream structure, this book is ideally designed for professionals, researchers, academicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, media specialists, game designers, and students hoping for the creation of sustainable social patterns in the emergent reality of energy and information.

Biomarkers in Bipolar Disorders summarizes cutting-edge findings in biomarkers' research, emphasizing the most promising findings, tools and technologies relevant to drug development and personalized medicine. Key findings cover different levels of evidence such as genes, molecules, cells, systems, brain and behavior related to diagnosis (state and trait/endophenotypes), prediction of treatment response and follow-up outcomes, along with the most promising perspectives in each area. Each section includes a comprehensive and focused overview on the state-of-the-art and perspectives. The book concludes with a section on practical applications, encompassing diagnostics development (genetic testing, biomarkers), and new drug development. Edited by Dr. Rodrigo Machado-Vieira and Dr. Jair C. Soares, and contributed by leading experts in the field of biomarker research, this book will be become the leading tool for all researchers and clinicians in Bipolar Disorder.

Neuroscience has made considerable progress in figuring out how the brain works. We know much about the molecular-genetic and biochemical underpinnings of sensory and motor functions, and recent neuroimaging work has opened the door to investigating the neural underpinnings of higher-order cognitive functions, such as memory, attention, and even free will. In these types of investigations, researchers apply specific stimuli to induce neural activity in the brain and look for the function in question. However, there may be more to the brain and its neuronal states than the changes in activity we induce by applying particular external stimuli.
In Volume 1 of Unlocking the Brain, Georg Northoff presents his argument for how the brain must code the relationship between its resting state activity and stimulus-induced activity in order to enable and predispose mental states and consciousness. By presupposing such a basic sense of neural code, the author ventures into different territories and fields of current neuroscience, including a comprehensive exploration of the features of resting state activity as distinguishable from and stimulus-induced activity; sparse coding and predictive coding; and spatial and temporal features of the resting state itself. This yields a unique and novel picture of the brain, and will have a major and lasting impact on neuroscientists working in neuroscience, psychiatry, and related fields.

Research on natural and artificial brains is proceeding at a rapid pace. However, the understanding of the essence of consciousness has changed slightly over the millennia, and only the last decade has brought some progress to the area. Scientific ideas emerged that the soul could be a product of the material body and that calculating machines could imitate brain processes. However, the authors of this book reject the previously common dualism-the view that the material and spiritual-psychic processes are separate and require a completely different substance as their foundation. Reductive Model of the Conscious Mind is a forward-thinking book wherein the authors identify processes that are the essence of conscious thinking and place them in the imagined, simplified structure of cells able to memorize and transmit information in the form of impulses, which they call neurons. The purpose of the study is to explain the essence of consciousness to the degree of development of natural sciences, because only the latter can find a way to embed the concept of the conscious mind in material brains. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 works to convince readers that the emergence of consciousness does not require detailed knowledge of the structure and morphology of the brain, with the exception of some specific properties of the neural network structure that the authors attempt to point out. Part 2 proves that the biological structure of many natural brains fulfills the necessary conditions for consciousness and intelligent thinking. Similarly, Part 3 shows the ways in which artificial creatures imitating natural brains can meet these conditions, which gives great hopes for building artificially intelligent beings endowed with consciousness. Covering topics that include cognitive architecture, the embodied mind, and machine learning, this book is ideal for cognitive scientists, philosophers of mind, neuroscientists, psychologists, researchers, academicians, and advanced-level students. The book can also help to focus the research of linguists, neurologists, and biophysicists on the biophysical basis of postulated information processing into knowledge structures.

Neuroprosthetics is a fast-growing area that brings together the fields of biomedical engineering and neuroscience as a means to interface the neural system directly to prostheses. Advancing research and applications in this field can assist in successfully restoring motor, sensory, and cognitive functions. Emerging Theory and Practice in Neuroprosthetics brings together the most up-to-date research surrounding neuroprosthetics advances and applications. Presenting several new results, concepts, and further developments in the area of neuroprosthetics, this book is an essential publication for researchers, upper-level students, engineers, and medical practitioners.

This book explores new developments in the dialogues between science and theatre and offers an introduction to a fast-expanding area of research and practice.The cognitive revolution in the humanities is creating new insights into the audience experience, performance processes and training. Scientists are collaborating with artists to investigate how our brains and bodies engage with performance to create new understanding of perception, emotion, imagination and empathy. Divided into four parts, each introduced by an expert editorial from leading researchers in the field, this edited volume offers readers an understanding of some of the main areas of collaboration and research: 1. Dances with Science 2. Touching Texts and Embodied Performance 3. The Multimodal Actor 4. Affecting Audiences Throughout its history theatre has provided exciting and accessible stagings of science, while contemporary practitioners are increasingly working with scientific and medical material. As Honour Bayes reported in the Guardian in 2011, the relationships between theatre, science and performance are 'exciting, explosive and unexpected'. Affective Performance and Cognitive Science charts new directions in the relations between disciplines, exploring how science and theatre can impact upon each other with reference to training, drama texts, performance and spectatorship. The book assesses the current state of play in this interdisciplinary field, facilitating cross disciplinary exchange and preparing the way for future studies.

Genetics and Neurobiology of Down Syndrome provides a thorough review of the genetic etiology and mechanisms of trisomy 21. The author discusses the history of the syndrome, along with the clinical features and health consequences, including physical features, cognitive, and neurologic symptoms. Genetic counseling on pros and cons of prenatal screening and testing and associated ethical issues are explored. This unique book also covers the societal and demographic aspects as well as the future direction of therapeutic development.

Short-listed for the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books, the Best Book of Ideas Prize, and the Society of Biology Book Awards - Book of the Year: Sunday Times, Sunday Express, and New Scientist

A new consensus is emerging among cognitive scientists: rather than possessing fixed, unchanging memories, we create new recollections each time we are called upon to remember. As psychologist Charles Fernyhough explains, remembering is an act of narrative imagination as much as it is the product of a neurological process. In Pieces of Light, he illuminates this compelling scientific breakthrough in a series of personal stories, each illustrating memory's complex synergy of cognitive and neurological functions.

Combining science and literature, the ordinary and the extraordinary, this fascinating tour through the new science of autobiographical memory helps us better understand the ways we remember--and the ways we forget.

There is a growing literature in neuroethics dealing with cognitive neuro-enhancement for healthy adults. However, discussions on this topic tend to focus on abstract theoretical positions while concrete policy proposals and detailed models are scarce. Furthermore, discussions appear to rely solely on data from the US or UK, while international perspectives are mostly non-existent. This volume fills this gap and addresses issues on cognitive enhancement comprehensively in three important ways: 1) it examines the conceptual implications stemming from competing points of view about the nature and goals of enhancement; 2) it addresses the ethical, social, and legal implications of neuroenhancement from an international and global perspective including contributions from scholars in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America; and 3) it discusses and analyzes concrete legal issues and policy options tailored to specific contexts.

Neuroinflammation, Resolution, and Neuroprotection in the Brain discusses the molecular aspects of neuroinflammation in neurological disorders. The book examines the effect of diet and exercise on neuroinflammatory diseases. Chapters focus on bioactive lipids, cytokines and chemokines, as well as the involvement of neuroinflammation, resolution and neuroprotection in neurotraumatic diseases, neurodegenerative diseases and neuropsychiatric diseases. The comprehensive information in this monograph will help readers understand molecular cross-talk among mediators of phospholipid, sphingolipid and cholesterol metabolism. The book's goal is to jumpstart more studies on molecular mechanisms and the therapeutic aspects of neurological disorders in human subjects.

Determining the biological bases for behavior, and the extent to which we can observe and explain their neural underpinnings, requires a bold, broadly defined research methodology. The interdisciplinary entries in this handbook are organized around the principle of "molecular psychology," which unites cutting-edge research from such wide-ranging disciplines as clinical neuroscience and genetics, psychology, behavioral neuroscience, and neuroethology. For the first time in a single volume, leaders in diverse research areas use molecular approaches to investigate social behavior, psychopathology, emotion, cognition and stress in healthy volunteers, patient populations, and an array of non-human species including rodents, insects, fish, and non-human primates. Chapters draw on molecular methods covering candidate genes, genome-wide association studies, copy number variations, gene expression studies, and epigenetics while addressing the ethical, legal, and social issues to emerge from this new and exciting research approach.

Respiratory Neurobiology: Physiology and Clinical Disorders, Part One, Volume 188 is one of two volumes on the neurology of breathing. This volume focuses on the neurophysiology of breathing, while the second volume focuses on pathologies attributable to abnormalities of the neural control of breathing, breathing problems that may occur in neurological diseases, and the neurological complications of respiratory diseases.

The Neurobiology of Aging and Alzheimer Disease in Down Syndrome provides a multidisciplinary approach to the understanding of aging and Alzheimer disease in Down syndrome that is synergistic and focused on efforts to understand the neurobiology as it pertains to interventions that will slow or prevent disease. The book provides detailed knowledge of key molecular aspects of aging and neurodegeneration in Down Syndrome by bringing together different models of the diseases and highlighting multiple techniques. Additionally, it includes case studies and coverage of neuroimaging, neuropathological and biomarker changes associated with these cohorts. This is a must-have resource for researchers who work with or study aging and Alzheimer disease either in the general population or in people with Down syndrome, for academic and general physicians who interact with sporadic dementia patients and need more information about Down syndrome, and for new investigators to the aging and Alzheimer/Down syndrome arena.

Child Neurology: Its Origins, Founders, Evolution and Growth, Second Edition updates the first biographical study of important contributors to the field of child neurology, consisting of over 250 biographical sketches written by over 100 physicians specializing in neurology, child neurology, pediatrics and obstetrics. Organized chronologically into six chapters, beginning before 1800 and continuing to the present, Child Neurology traces the emergence of child neurology as a separate specialty from its roots in pediatrics and neurology. With a definitive historical introduction by the editor, Dr. Stephen Ashwal. This new edition will feature a new section on The Dynamic Growth and Expansion of Child Neurology: The Late Twentieth Century (1960 to 2000+) and features about 138 new biographical sketches of leaders in the field during this recent time frame. Child Neurology: Its Origins, Founders, Evolution and Growth, Second Edition will be published on behalf of the Child Neurology Society, a professional society that strives to foster recognition and support for children with neurological disorders and to promote and exchange national and international scientific research, education, and training in the field of neurology.

Basic Neuroscience Protocols: Tips, Tricks, and Pitfalls contains explanatory sections that describe the techniques and what each technique really tells the researcher on a scientific level. These explanations describe relevant controls, troubleshooting, and reaction components for some of the most widely used neuroscience protocols that remain difficult for many neuroscientists to implement successfully. Having this additional information will help researchers ensure that their experiments work the first time, and will also minimize the time spent working on a technique only to discover that the problem was them, and not their materials.

Describes techniques in very specific detail with Step-by-step instructions, giving researchers in depth understandingOffers many details not present in other protocol booksDescribes relevant controls for each technique and what those controls meanChapters include references (key articles, books, protocols) for additional studyDescribes both the techniques and the habits necessary to get quality results, such as aseptic technique, aliquoting, and general laboratory rules "