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.

Orienting is the gateway to attention, the first step in processing stimulus information. This volume examines these initial stages of information intake, focusing on the sensory and motivational mechanisms that determine such phenomena as stimulus selection and inhibition, habituation, pre-attentive processing, and expectancy. Psychophysiological methods are emphasized throughout. The contributors consider analyses based on cardiovascular and electrodermal changes, reflex reactions, and neural events in the cortex and subcortex.
Stimulated by a conference lauding Frances Graham -- held before and during a recent meeting of the Society for Psychophysiological Research, the book presents current theory and research by an international cadre of outstanding investigators. A major researcher and theorist in the field of attention for more than three decades, Dr. Graham contributes an Afterword to the present volume which is both a consideration of the work which has gone before, and a new, original theory paper on preattentive processing and attention.

Our contact with the world is through perception, and therefore the study of the process is of obvious importance and signi?cance. For much of its long history, the study of perception has been con?ned to natural- tic observation. Nonetheless, the phenomena considered worthy of note have not been those that nurture our survival-the veridical features of perception-but the oddities or departures from the common and c- monplace accuracies of perception. With the move from the natural world to the laboratory the oddities of perception multiplied, and they received ever more detailed scrutiny. My general intention is to examine the interpretations of the perc- tual process and its errors throughout history. The emphasis on errors of perception might appear to be a narrow approach, but in fact it enc- passes virtually all perceptual research from the ancients until the present. The constancies of perception have been taken for granted whereas - partures from constancies (errors or illusions) have fostered fascination.

Psychophysical theory exists in two distinct forms -- one ascribes the explanation of phenomena and empirical laws to sensory processes. Context effects arising through the use of particular methods are an unwanted nuisance whose influence must be eliminated so that one isolates the "true" sensory scale. The other considers psychophysics only in terms of cognitive variables such as the judgment strategies induced by instructions and response biases. Sensory factors play a minor role in cognitive approaches.
This work admits the validity of both forms of theory by arguing that the same empirical phenomena should be conceptualized in two alternative, apparently contradictory, ways. This acceptance of opposites is necessary because some empirical phenomena are best explained in terms of sensory processes, while others are best ascribed to central causes.
The complementarity theory stresses the "mutually completing" nature of two distinct models. The first assigns importance to populations of sensory neurons acting in the aggregate and is formulated to deal with sensory effects. The second assigns importance to judgment uncertainty and to the subject strategies induced by experimental procedures. This model is formulated to explain context effects. Throughout the text, the exposition is interlaced with mathematics, graphs, and computer simulations designed to reveal the complementary nature of psychophysical explanations.

Conceived at a time when biological research on aggression and violence was drawn into controversy because of sociopolitical questions about its study, this volume provides an up-to-date account of recent biological studies performed -- mostly on humans. A group of scientists recognized the importance of freedom of inquiry and deemed it vital to address the most promising biological research in the field. The focus on biological mechanisms is not meant to imply that biological variables are paramount as a determinant of violence. Rather, biological variables operate in conjunction with other variables contributing to aggression or violence, and a complete understanding of this phenomenon requires consideration of all influences bearing on it.
This book will familiarize readers with the rapidly growing and increasingly significant body of knowledge on the biological bases of human antisocial, aggressive, and violent behaviors. The editors concentrated on biological influences that support the basic physiological and biochemical processes of the brain and did not cover those biological influences that impact on the health of the individual such as head injury, pregnancy and birth complications, diet, and exposure to lead and other toxins. They focused on biological influences to illuminate their role in the complex behavioral phenomenon of violence.
Three different approaches to the biological study of human antisocial, aggressive, and violent behaviors are represented -- genetic, neurobiological, and biosocial. Representing each of these three approaches, individual chapters from investigators in psychobiology, biological psychiatry, and basic-clinical neurosciences address the most recent experimental findings, methods, theory, and common misconceptions in the biological study of aggression and violence. The areas of primary focus are behavior and molecular genetics, neurochemistry and hormones, neuroimaging, psychophysiology and developmental psychobiology. Generally speaking, investigators following these different approaches have experience in different scientific backgrounds, select different methods, generate different analyses, employ different conceptual definitions for some of the same terms, and assume a different philosophical stance in attempting to explain violence. Nevertheless, all are united in their efforts to understand the biological underpinnings of violence. This book then assumes a comprehensive approach wherein different levels of analysis and different approaches inform each other. It is clear from the studies reported that aggression and violence are multidetermined phenomena and understanding them requires an interdisciplinary approach spanning economic, sociopolitical, psychological, sociological, and criminological as well as biomedical considerations. Nature (biology) and nurture (experience, context) are fundamentally inseparable in explaining aggression and violence; biology may affect experience or context, but experience or context also influences biology. Both need to be studied in a search for explanations of this phenomena.

This volume is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the recent explosion of experimental tools in neuroscience that now make it possible to manipulate, record, and understand neuronal activity within the intact brain, and which are helping us learn how the many neurons that comprise a network act together to control behavior. Leaders in the field discuss the latest developments in optogenetics, functional imaging, circuit mapping, and the application of these tools to complex biological problems.

Although considerable progress has been made in the understanding and treatment of a range of medical disorders, it had recently been pointed out that 85 percent of the population will be stricken by chronic disorders which may be accompanied by many years of suffering.
This volume deals with issues of both cure and risk in chronic illnesses which are among the group of disorders associated with the leading causes of death in the United States at this time -- Alzheimer's disease, AIDS, and cancer. A consideration of the role of brain and behavior in relation to the cure and prevention of these disorders is the central focus of the various chapters in this book. Several chapters discuss the neuropsychological aspects of chronic illnesses including the underlying pathophysiology of changes in the brain which may be associated with both behavioral and physical signs and symptoms in these disorders. Considerable evidence suggests that a range of psychosocial or behavioral factors, such as stressful life events and depression, are associated with increased morbidity or mortality. Complex neurobiological pathways involving the brain, neurotransmitter, and neuroendocrine systems have been implicated. Other chapters consider some of the links among brain, behavior and chronic illnesses, as well as psychological factors such as coping and depression in relation to chronic disorders.
The three leading risk factors known to be associated with both chronic illnesses and death -- diet, tobacco, and alcohol -- are all related to behavioral choices. Sexual behavior can be added to the list in terms of HIV infection and acquired immunodeficiency disease (AIDS). Several chapters deal specifically with a consideration of sexual behavior and HIV infection which clearly highlight the need for scientific knowledge in human sexuality if effective long term preventive measures are to be developed while waiting for a vaccine or cure.
The search for cures must continue to have the highest priority in the scientific and clinical struggle against disease. Nonetheless, the value of psychosocial interventions on the quality of life and mental states of seriously ill persons should not be underestimated.

The usual method for studying mental processes entails taking words in linguistics -- or concepts in logic -- and establishing the connections and relationships between them. Thus, the traditional approach to semantic problems -- those of meaning and understanding -- is through language. Most researchers agree that thought and language are generated by deep-seated semantic structures determined by the structure of the brain. Until now, however, all attempts at constructing semantic models have been made on the basis of linguistic material alone, without taking brain structure into account. Analysis of these models shows them to be as inadequate as those based on the method of the black box.
This book approaches the problem of the organization of higher psychological functions a different way -- by analyzing the functional organization of the neural structures that gradually form universal categories from "raw" sensory material. At the higher levels of the brain's operation, these universals correspond to the basic categories of thought and language. The visual system provides rewarding material for such an approach, both because it is relatively well researched and because it is the main source of sensory information in humans. With this in mind, this monograph examines the whole process of the transformation and description -- the coding of visual information. The most important aspect of this process is the transition from the description of visual space to the description of individual objects and the relationships between them. This transition is made possible by the existence in the visual system of various mechanisms that developed during evolution as a result of environmental influences.
Written for a wide circle of investigators in disciplines associated with different aspects of the functioning of the brain -- physiologists and psychologists -- this book is also of importance to engineers and mathematicians working on the problems of artificial intelligence, and linguists and philosophers interested in the deep structures that form the universals of thought and language.

The power of odors to unlock human memory is celebrated in literature and anecdote, but poorly documented by science. Odors -- perhaps more than other stimuli -- are widely believed to evoke vivid and complex past experiences easily. Yet in contrast to the frequency with which odors are thought to evoke memories of the past, scientific evidence is thus far scant.
For years, voluminous data have been collected on odor sensitivity, whereas relatively few studies exist on memory for odors per se. Moreover, the memory data that do exist are thus far only poorly integrated with the most modern attitudes on human memory. The major goal of this volume is to point the way toward a better state of affairs, one in which the study of odor memory is legitimatized as a proper specialization and is informed by the most promising ideas in the mainstream study of memory. This volume explores three tendencies in modern memory theory that have not yet sufficiently penetrated the odor-memory work: memory coding, memory and knowledge, and implicit and explicit memory.

Time, Tradition and Society in Greek Archaeology is an innovative volume which examines the relevance of archaeological theory to classical archaeology. It offers a wideranging overview of classical archaeology, from the Bronze Age to the Classical period and from mainland Greece to Cyprus. Within this framework Spencer examines many of the issues which have become important in the study of archaeology in recent years - time, the `past', gender, ideology, social structure and group identity. The papers in this collection cover such diverse topics as the rural landscape, classical art and scientific methodologies. Over the last century the study of classical archaeology has been orthodox and static. The essays in this collection examine it in the light of current theoretical archaeology and anthropology, making it more relevant and valuable to the study of archaeology in the 1990s. This is a diverse and topical collection, of great value to classicists, ancient historians, anthropologists and everyone interested in new approaches to archaeology.

If one envisages neuroscience as a pyramid, with the more mole- lar disciplines forming the base and the more integrative d- ciplines positioned above, then neuropsychology clearly would be near the tip. Neuropsychology seeks to find order in the ultimate product of all neural systems, namely behavior, and to relate that product to its neural substrate. Relationships between brain and behavior are sought, but reductionistic explanations are eschewed. Attempting to "explain" complex behaviors in terms of neuronal activity is no more satisfying than attempting to "explain" artificial intelligence in terms of voltages within a computer's central pr- essing unit. If one is to comprehend the functioning of either the brain or the digital computer, one must know something about not only the structure and mechanics of the device, but also the prin- ples according to which components of the device are organized and the context in which the device is operating (e.g., environm- tal inputs and stored information).

This volume presents a state-of-the-science review of the most promising current European research -- and its historic roots of research -- on complex problem solving (CPS) in Europe. It is an attempt to close the knowledge gap among American scholars regarding the European approach to understanding CPS. Although most of the American researchers are well aware of the fact that CPS has been a very active research area in Europe for quite some time, they do not know any specifics about even the most important research. Part of the reason for this lack of knowledge is undoubtedly the fact that European researchers -- for the most part -- have been rather reluctant to publish their work in English-language journals.
The book concentrates on European research because the basic approach European scholars have taken to studying CPS is very different from one taken by North American researchers. Traditionally, American scholars have been studying CPS in "natural" domains -- physics, reading, writing, and chess playing -- concentrating primarily on exploring novice-expert differences and the acquisition of a complex skill. European scholars, in contrast, have been primarily concerned with problem solving behavior in artificially generated, mostly computerized, complex systems. While the American approach has the advantage of high external validity, the European approach has the advantage of system variables that can be systematically manipulated to reveal the effects of system parameters on CPS behavior. The two approaches are thus best viewed as complementing each other.
This volume contains contributions from four European countries -- Sweden, Switzerland, Great Britain, and Germany. As such, it accurately represents the bulk of empirical research on CPS which has been conducted in Europe. An international cooperation started two years ago with the goal of bringing the European research on complex problem solving to the awareness of American scholars. A direct result of that effort, the contributions to this book are both informative and comprehensive.

Based on the First Biannual Lifespan Development Conference, this volume offers a multidisciplinary and multidimensional approach to the study of lifespan development in the areas of neuropsychology, cognition, behavior genetics, and perception. The objective of the conference was to provide a lively forum for the discussion of issues related to lifespan development and to reflect on important topics challenging the field during the 1990s. The chapters in this book, motivated by the conference presentations, cover:
* the assessment and evaluation of developmental changes in visual perception;
* the contribution of behavioral genetic factors to development;
* the predictability of perinatal risk factors as they relate to cognitive and linguistic outcomes;
* the neuropsychological changes during aging; and
* innovative approaches to the study of cognitive development using neuropsychological testing methods.

This book provides the latest information about the development of intersensory perception -- a topic which has recently begun to receive a great deal of attention from researchers studying the general problem of perceptual development. This interest was inspired after the realization that unimodal perception of sensory information is only the first stage of perceptual processing. Under normal conditions, an organism is faced with multiple, multisensory sources of information and its task is to either select a single relevant source of information or select several sources of information and integrate them. In general, perception and action on the basis of multiple sources of information is more efficient and effective. Before greater efficiency and effectiveness can be achieved, however, the organism must be able to integrate the multiple sources of information. By doing so, the organism can then achieve a coherent and unified percept of the world.
The various chapters in this book examine the developmental origins of intersensory perceptual capacities by presenting the latest research on the development of intersensory perceptual skills in a variety of different species. By adopting a comparative approach to this problem, this volume as a whole helps uncover similarities as well as differences in the mechanisms underlying the development of intersensory integration. In addition, it shows that there is no longer any doubt that intersensory interactions occur right from the beginning of the developmental process, that the nature of these intersensory interactions changes as development progresses, and that early experience contributes in important ways to these changes.

This volume deals with the visual perception of lightness, brightness, and transparency of surfaces, both under minimal laboratory conditions and in complex images typical of everyday life. Each chapter analyzes the challenging problem of how a pattern of light intensities on the retina is transformed into the visual experience of varying shades of grey, transparent surfaces, and light and shadow. One important theme which unifies the group of contributions is the recognition that the perception of surface lightness is rooted fundamentally in the encoding of relative intensities of light within the retinal image, not intensities per se. A second important unifying theme is an appreciation of the multiple dimensions of the visual experience of lightness, brightness, and transparency -- people do not perceive the lightness of surfaces by discarding information concerning the light illuminating those surfaces; rather, they perceive a pattern of illumination projected onto a pattern of surface greys.
The long-fascinating problems of surface lightness and color perception have become very active topics recently as a resurging interest within the visual perception community has coincided with an increasing appreciation of the centrality of these problems by the emerging machine vision community. The best of recent psychophysical work on lightness perception, as presented in this volume, will be of great interest to both of these communities. This book also marks a synthesis of old and new. A traditional, strongly Gestalt, approach that had fallen into neglect is updated in the light of new quantitative systematic methods and important later discoveries, such as the disappearance of stabilized retinal images. The book draws on such diverse approaches as Gestalt and ecological psychology, threshold psychophysics, and computational vision, advancing our understanding of the interrelations among surface color, illumination, perceived depth, shading, and transparency.

Some of our time is spent eating and drinking and some is spent on matters regarding reproduction. Some of us seek fame or recognition while others seek satisfaction internally, with little need for recognition. Some people study for success in a profession, while others might study rocks, birds, or French literature for no apparent reason other than to know about it. Why are we motivated to engage in so many apparently unrelated activities? This book places our various activities into categories, thus providing a framework for understanding how everything that we do fits together and is based on brain mechanisms. Disturbances in motivation play important roles in autism, depression, Parkinson's disease, and addiction. Understanding the motivational aspects of these disorders can help to inform our approach to these conditions. This book may be of value for students in psychology, counseling, management, and anyone who is interested in understanding our daily behavior.

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 Oxford Handbook of Functional Brain Imaging in Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neurosciences describes in a readily accessible manner the several functional neuroimaging methods and critically appraises their applications that today account for a large part of the contemporary cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology literature. The complexity and the novelty of these methods often cloud appreciation of the methods' contributions and future promise. The Handbook begins with an overview of the basic concepts of functional brain imaging common to all methods, and proceeds with a description of each of them, namely magnetoencephalography (MEG), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Its second part covers the various research applications of functional neuroimaging on issues like the function of the default mode network; the possibility and the utility of imaging of consciousness; the search for mnemonic traces of concepts; human will and decision-making; motor cognition; language; the mechanisms of affective states and pain; the presurgical mapping of the brain; and others. As such, the volume reviews the methods and their contributions to current research and comments on the degree to which they have enhanced our understanding of the relation between neurophysiological activity and sensory, motor, and cognitive functions. Moreover, it carefully considers realistic contributions of functional neuroimaging to future endeavors in cognitive neuroscience, medicine, and neuropsychology.

This volume is a record of the proceedings of a festspiel held to honor Jozef F. Zwislocki for his outstanding contributions to science and to Syracuse University. His contributions to the knowledge of the hydromechanical, neurophysiological, and perceptual mechanisms of the auditory system are truly monumental. In addition, his contributions to the comprehension of the mammalian auditory system include not only landmark ideas, but also many of the experimental findings in psychoacoustics and peripheral auditory physiology that constitute the database which has provided a springboard for research in laboratories throughout the world. His efforts to link physics, biology, and psychophysics to create a basis for our understanding of the nervous system have had an influence that extends far beyond the science of acoustics.
Although the purpose of this conference was to recognize the many achievements of Professor Zwislocki, the spirit of the participants was to honor him in a manner that best characterized his lifetime dedication to research, that is, to report the results of their own work. Consequently, this volume is first and foremost a compilation of scientific papers in the area of sensory research. Some are reports of recent experiments and some present an overview of research efforts extending from the past up to ongoing work. His influence can be recognized in all of the contributions and some explicitly describe the ties between their own work and the germinal ideas planted by him. This volume, in reflecting the rapid progress being made in sensory science and written by those who are making it, is a fitting tribute to Zwislocki, who always stood at the forefront of his science.

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.

The major aim of this book is to introduce the ways in which scientists approach and think about a phenomenon -- hearing -- that intersects three quite different disciplines: the physics of sound sources and the propagation of sound through air and other materials, the anatomy and physiology of the transformation of the physical sound into neural activity in the brain, and the psychology of the perception we call hearing. Physics, biology, and psychology each play a role in understanding how and what we hear.
The text evolved over the past decade in an attempt to convey something about scientific thinking, as evidenced in the domain of sounds and their perception, to students whose primary focus is not science. It does so using a minimum of mathematics (high school functions such as linear, logarithmic, sine, and power) without compromising scientific integrity. A significant enrichment is the availability of a compact disc (CD) containing over 20 examples of acoustic demonstrations referred to in the book. These demonstrations, which range from echo effects and filtered noise to categorical speech perception and total more than 45 minutes, are invaluable resources for making the text come alive.

In this volume, Berkowitz develops the argument that experiential and behavioral components of an emotional state are affected by many processes: some are highly cognitive in nature; others are automatic and involuntary. Cognitive and associative mechanisms theoretically come into play at different times in the emotion-cognition sequence. The model he proposes, therefore, integrates theoretical positions that previously have been artificially segregated in much of the emotion-cognition literature.
The breadth of the implications of Berkowitz's theory is also reflected in the diversity of this book's companion chapters. Written by researchers whose work focuses on both social cognition and emotion, these articles provide important insights and possible extensions of the "cognitive-neoassociationistic" conceptualization developed in the target article. Although each chapter is a valuable contribution in its own right, this volume, taken as a whole, is a timely and important contribution both to social cognition and to research and theory on emotion per se.

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.

Helen Neville was a pioneer in the field of Neuroplasticity, focusing her research on deafness and contributing to an acceptance of the role that experience plays in shaping the sensory system This book will honour her work, following her untimely death in 2018 Featuring contributions from former students, collaborators, and colleagues, the book showcases Professor Neville's legacy to the field