Principles of Neural Design

Author: Peter Sterling
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262028700
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 567

Book Description
Neuroscience research has exploded, with more than fifty thousand neuroscientists applying increasingly advanced methods. A mountain of new facts and mechanisms has emerged. And yet a principled framework to organize this knowledge has been missing. In this book, Peter Sterling and Simon Laughlin, two leading neuroscientists, strive to fill this gap, outlining a set of organizing principles to explain the whys of neural design that allow the brain to compute so efficiently. Setting out to "reverse engineer" the brain -- disassembling it to understand it -- Sterling and Laughlin first consider why an animal should need a brain, tracing computational abilities from bacterium to protozoan to worm. They examine bigger brains and the advantages of "anticipatory regulation"; identify constraints on neural design and the need to "nanofy"; and demonstrate the routes to efficiency in an integrated molecular system, phototransduction. They show that the principles of neural design at finer scales and lower levels apply at larger scales and higher levels; describe neural wiring efficiency; and discuss learning as a principle of biological design that includes "save only what is needed." Sterling and Laughlin avoid speculation about how the brain might work and endeavor to make sense of what is already known. Their distinctive contribution is to gather a coherent set of basic rules and exemplify them across spatial and functional scales.

Principles of Neural Design

Author: Peter Sterling
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262534681
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 567

Book Description
Two distinguished neuroscientists distil general principles from more than a century of scientific study, “reverse engineering” the brain to understand its design. Neuroscience research has exploded, with more than fifty thousand neuroscientists applying increasingly advanced methods. A mountain of new facts and mechanisms has emerged. And yet a principled framework to organize this knowledge has been missing. In this book, Peter Sterling and Simon Laughlin, two leading neuroscientists, strive to fill this gap, outlining a set of organizing principles to explain the whys of neural design that allow the brain to compute so efficiently. Setting out to “reverse engineer” the brain—disassembling it to understand it—Sterling and Laughlin first consider why an animal should need a brain, tracing computational abilities from bacterium to protozoan to worm. They examine bigger brains and the advantages of “anticipatory regulation”; identify constraints on neural design and the need to “nanofy”; and demonstrate the routes to efficiency in an integrated molecular system, phototransduction. They show that the principles of neural design at finer scales and lower levels apply at larger scales and higher levels; describe neural wiring efficiency; and discuss learning as a principle of biological design that includes “save only what is needed.” Sterling and Laughlin avoid speculation about how the brain might work and endeavor to make sense of what is already known. Their distinctive contribution is to gather a coherent set of basic rules and exemplify them across spatial and functional scales.

Principles of Neural Science

Author: Eric R. Kandel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780838580684
Category : Anatomy
Languages : en
Pages : 1135

Book Description

Neural Network Design and the Complexity of Learning

Author: J. Stephen Judd
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262100458
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Book Description
Using the tools of complexity theory, Stephen Judd develops a formal description of associative learning in connectionist networks. He rigorously exposes the computational difficulties in training neural networks and explores how certain design principles will or will not make the problems easier.Judd looks beyond the scope of any one particular learning rule, at a level above the details of neurons. There he finds new issues that arise when great numbers of neurons are employed and he offers fresh insights into design principles that could guide the construction of artificial and biological neural networks.The first part of the book describes the motivations and goals of the study and relates them to current scientific theory. It provides an overview of the major ideas, formulates the general learning problem with an eye to the computational complexity of the task, reviews current theory on learning, relates the book's model of learning to other models outside the connectionist paradigm, and sets out to examine scale-up issues in connectionist learning.Later chapters prove the intractability of the general case of memorizing in networks, elaborate on implications of this intractability and point out several corollaries applying to various special subcases. Judd refines the distinctive characteristics of the difficulties with families of shallow networks, addresses concerns about the ability of neural networks to generalize, and summarizes the results, implications, and possible extensions of the work. Neural Network Design and the Complexity of Learning is included in the Network Modeling and Connectionism series edited by Jeffrey Elman.

Principles of Neural Science

Author: Eric R. Kandel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781264267682
Category : Neurology
Languages : en
Pages : 1646

Book Description
The goal of this sixth edition of Principles of Neural Science is to provide readers with insight into how genes, molecules, neurons, and the circuits they form give rise to behavior. With the exponential growth in neuroscience research over the 40 years since the first edition of this book, an increasing challenge is to provide a comprehensive overview of the field while remaining true to the original goal of the first edition, which is to elevate imparting basic principles over detailed encyclopedic knowledge.

What Is Health?

Author: Peter Sterling
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262043300
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Book Description
An argument that health is optimal responsiveness and is often best treated at the system level. Medical education centers on the venerable “no-fault” concept of homeostasis, whereby local mechanisms impose constancy by correcting errors, and the brain serves mainly for emergencies. Yet, it turns out that most parameters are not constant; moreover, despite the importance of local mechanisms, the brain is definitely in charge. In this book, the eminent neuroscientist Peter Sterling describes a broader concept: allostasis (coined by Sterling and Joseph Eyer in the 1980s), whereby the brain anticipates needs and efficiently mobilizes supplies to prevent errors. Allostasis evolved early, Sterling explains, to optimize energy efficiency, relying heavily on brain circuits that deliver a brief reward for each positive surprise. Modern life so reduces the opportunities for surprise that we are driven to seek it in consumption: bigger burgers, more opioids, and innumerable activities that involve higher carbon emissions. The consequences include addiction, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and climate change. Sterling concludes that solutions must go beyond the merely technical to restore possibilities for daily small rewards and revivify the capacities for egalitarianism that were hard-wired into our nature. Sterling explains that allostasis offers what is not found in any medical textbook: principled definitions of health and disease: health as the capacity for adaptive variation and disease as shrinkage of that capacity. Sterling argues that since health is optimal responsiveness, many significant conditions are best treated at the system level.

Neuronal Dynamics

Author: Wulfram Gerstner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107060834
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 591

Book Description
This solid introduction uses the principles of physics and the tools of mathematics to approach fundamental questions of neuroscience.

Introduction To The Theory Of Neural Computation

Author: John A. Hertz
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 0429968213
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
Comprehensive introduction to the neural network models currently under intensive study for computational applications. It also provides coverage of neural network applications in a variety of problems of both theoretical and practical interest.

The Synaptic Organization of the Brain

Author: Gordon M. Shepherd M.D.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198036175
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 736

Book Description
It is widely recognized that the neural basis of brain function can be fully understood only by integrating many disciplines at many levels. Studies of synaptic organization are bringing about a quiet revolution in achieving this goal, as documented by this unique book over the past 30 years. In this fifth edition, the results of the mouse and human genome projects are incorporated for the first time. Molecular biologists interested in functional genomics and proteomics of the brain will find answers here to the critical questions: what are the cell and circuit functions of gene products? Also for the first time, the reader is oriented to supporting neuroscience databases. Among the new advances covered are 2-photon confocal laser microscopy of dendrites and dendritic spines, biochemical analyses, and dual patch and multielectrode recordings, applied together with an increasing range of behavioral and gene-targeting methods. Leading experts in the best understood brain regions bring together the molecular, anatomical, functional, and behavioral data in authoritative integrated accounts. The chapters are organized in the same format, covering the neural elements, synaptic connections, basic circuits, physiology, neurotransmitters, neuromodulators, membrane properties, dendritic properties, and with a final section on how the circuits mediate specific behaviors. The uniform framework for each chapter enables the authors to higlight the principles that are common to all regions, as well as the adaptations unique to each, thus serving as a model for understanding the neural basis of behavior.

Neuroprosthetics

Author: Justin C. Sanchez
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1466553243
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 236

Book Description
Master the tools of design thinking using Neuroprosthetics: Principles and Applications. Developed from successfully tested material used in an undergraduate and graduate level course taught to biomedical engineering and neuroscience students, this book focuses on the use of direct neural sensing and stimulation as a therapeutic intervention for complex disorders of the brain. It covers the theory and applications behind neuroprosthetics and explores how neuroprosthetic design thinking can enhance value for users of a direct neural interface. The book explains the fundamentals of design thinking, introduces essential concepts from neuroscience and engineering illustrating the major components of neuroprosthetics, and presents practical applications. In addition to describing the approach of design thinking (based on facts about the user’s needs, desires, habits, attitudes, and experiences with neuroprosthetics), it also examines how effectively "human centered" neuroprosthetics can address people’s needs and interactions in their daily lives. Identifying concepts and features of devices that work well with users of a direct neural interface, this book: Outlines the signal sensing capabilities and trade-offs for common electrode designs, and determines the most appropriate electrode for any neuroprosthetic application Specifies neurosurgical techniques and how electronics should be tailored to capture neural signals Provides an understanding of the mechanisms of neural–electrode performance and information contained in neural signals Provides understanding of neural decoding in neuroprosthetic applications Describes the strategies that can be used to promote long-term therapeutic interventions for humans through the use of neuroprosthetics The first true primary text for undergraduate and graduate students in departments of neuroscience and bioengineering that covers the theory and applications behind this science, Neuroprosthetics: Principles and Applications provides the fundamental knowledge needed to understand how electrodes translate neural activity into signals that are useable by machines and enables readers to master the tools of design thinking and apply them to any neuroprosthetic application.