A groundbreaking guide to improve teaching based on the latest research in neuroscience, from the bestselling author of A Mind for Numbers.

Neuroscientists and cognitive scientists have made enormous strides in understanding the brain and how we learn, but little of that insight has filtered down to the way teachers teach. Uncommon Sense Teaching applies this research to the classroom for teachers, parents, and anyone interested in improving education.

Topics include:

• keeping students motivated and engaged, especially with online learning
• helping students remember information long-term, so it isn't immediately forgotten after a test
• how to teach inclusively in a diverse classroom where students have a wide range of abilities

Drawing on research findings as well as the authors' combined decades of experience in the classroom, Uncommon Sense Teaching equips readers with the tools to enhance their teaching, whether they're seasoned professionals or parents trying to offer extra support for their children's education.

The complexity of the brain and the protean nature of behavior remain the most elusive area of science, but also the most important. van Hemmen and Sejnowski invited 23 experts from the many areas--from evolution to qualia--of systems neuroscience to formulate one problem each. Although each chapter was written independently and can be read separately, together they provide a useful roadmap to the field of systems neuroscience and will serve as a source of inspirations for future explorers of the brain.

The Computational Brain, das aussergewohnliche Buch uber vergleichende Forschung in den Bereichen von menschlichem Gehirn und neuesten Moglichkeiten der Computertechnologie, liegt hiermit erstmals in deutscher Sprache vor. Geschrieben von einem fuhrenden Forscherteam in den USA, ist es eine Fundgrube fur alle, die wissen wollen, was der Stand der Wissenschaft auf diesem Gebiet ist. Die Autoren fuhren die Bereiche der Neuroinformatik und Neurobiologie mit gut ausgesuchten Beispielen und der gebotenen Hintergrundinformation gekonnt zusammen. Das Buch wird somit nicht nur dem Fachwissenschaftler sondern auch dem interdisziplinaren Interesse des Informatikers und des Biologen auf eine hervorragende Weise gerecht.
Ubersetzt wurde das Buch von Prof. Dr. Steffen Holldobler und Dipl.-Biol. Claudia Holldobler, einem Informatiker und einer Biologin.
Rezension in Spektrum der Wissenschaft
nr. 10, S. 122 f. im Oktober 1997
(...) Die 1992 erschienene amerikanische Originalausgabe des vorliegenden Werkes ist so erfolgreich, dass man bereits von einem Klassiker reden kann. (...)
(...) ....ist das Buch sehr zu empfehlen. In Verbindung von Neurobiologie und Neuroinformatik
konkurrenzlos, vermittelt es einiges von der Faszination theoretischer Hirnforschung, die auch in Deutschland zunehmend mehr Wissenschaftler in ihren Bann schlagt.

Rezension erschienen in: Computer Spektrum 3/1997, S. 2
(...)Das Buch wird somit nicht nur dem Fachwissenschaftler, sondern auch den interdisziplinaren Interesse des Informatikers und des Biologen auf eine hervorragende Weise gerecht(...)"

Experts review the latest research on the neocortex and consider potential directions for future research. Over the past decade, technological advances have dramatically increased information on the structural and functional organization of the brain, especially the cerebral cortex. This explosion of data has radically expanded our ability to characterize neural circuits and intervene at increasingly higher resolutions, but it is unclear how this has informed our understanding of underlying mechanisms and processes. In search of a conceptual framework to guide future research, leading researchers address in this volume the evolution and ontogenetic development of cortical structures, the cortical connectome, and functional properties of neuronal circuits and populations. They explore what constitutes "uniquely human" mental capacities and whether neural solutions and computations can be shared across species or repurposed for potentially uniquely human capacities. Contributors Danielle S. Bassett, Randy M. Bruno, Elizabeth A. Buffalo, Michael E. Coulter, Hermann Cuntz, Stanislas Dehaene, James J. DiCarlo, Pascal Fries, Karl J. Friston, Asif A. Ghazanfar, Anne-Lise Giraud, Joshua I. Gold, Scott T. Grafton, Jennifer M. Groh, Elizabeth A. Grove, Saskia Haegens, Kenneth D. Harris, Kristen M. Harris, Nicholas G. Hatsopoulos, Tarik F. Haydar, Takao K. Hensch, Wieland B. Huttner, Matthias Kaschube, Gilles Laurent, David A. Leopold, Johannes Leugering, Belen Lorente-Galdos, Jason N. MacLean, David A. McCormick, Lucia Melloni, Anish Mitra, Zoltan Molnar, Sydney K. Muchnik, Pascal Nieters, Marcel Oberlaender, Bijan Pesaran, Christopher I. Petkov, Gordon Pipa, David Poeppel, Marcus E. Raichle, Pasko Rakic, John H. Reynolds, Ryan V. Raut, John L. Rubenstein, Andrew B. Schwartz, Terrence J. Sejnowski, Nenad Sestan, Debra L. Silver, Wolf Singer, Peter L. Strick, Michael P. Stryker, Mriganka Sur, Mary Elizabeth Sutherland, Maria Antonietta Tosches, William A. Tyler, Martin Vinck, Christopher A. Walsh, Perry Zurn

This book combines cutting-edge findings in neuroscience with examples from history and the headlines to introduce the new science of cultural biology, born of advances in brain imaging, computer modeling, and genetics. Doctors Quartz and Sejnowski show how both our noblest and darkest traits are rooted in brain systems so ancient that we share them with insects. They then demystify the dynamic engagement between brain and world that makes us something far beyond the sum of our parts.

The authors show how our humanity unfolds in precise stages as brain and world engage on increasingly complex levels. Their discussion embraces shaping forces as ancient as climate change over millennia and events as recent as the terrorism and heroism of September 11, and offers intriguing answers to some of our most enduring questions, including why we live together, love, kill -- and sometimes lay down our lives for others.

Since its founding in 1989 by Terrence Sejnowski, Neural Computation has become the leading journal in the field. Foundations of Neural Computationcollects, by topic, the most significant papers that have appeared in the journal over the past nine years.This volume of Foundations of Neural Computation, on unsupervised learning algorithms, focuses on neural network learning algorithms that do not require an explicit teacher. The goal of unsupervised learning is to extract an efficient internal representation of the statistical structure implicit in the inputs. These algorithms provide insights into the development of the cerebral cortex and implicit learning in humans. They are also of interest to engineers working in areas such as computer vision and speech recognition who seek efficient representations of raw input data.