Oxford Handbook of Transcranial Stimulation (Oxford Handbooks) Review

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Oxford Handbook of Transcranial Stimulation (Oxford Handbooks) Reviewgreat informative book covering many aspects of brain function and a science yet to be uncovered or is not well understood.A great future prospect for science and understanding further what the human brain is capable of.Oxford Handbook of Transcranial Stimulation (Oxford Handbooks) OverviewSince becoming commercially available in 1985, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has emerged as an important tool in several areas of neuroscience.Originally envisioned as a way to measure the responsiveness and conduction speed of neurons and synapses in the brain and spinal cord, TMS has also become an important tool for changing the activity of brain neurons and the functions they subserve and as important adjunct to brain imaging and mapping techniques.Along with transcranial electrical stimulation techniques, TMS has diffused far beyond the borders of clinical neurophysiology and into cognitive, perceptual, behavioral, and therapeutic investigation and attracted a highly diverse group of users and would-be users.This book provides an authoritative review of the scientific and technical background required to understand transcranial stimulation techniques and a wide-ranging survey of their burgeoning application in neurophysiology, perception, cognition, emotion, and the clinic.Each of its six sections deals with a major area and is edited by an international authority therein.It will serve researchers, clinicians, students, and others as the definitive text in this area for years to come.

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Evolutionary Worlds without End Review

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Evolutionary Worlds without End ReviewI've been reading Henry Plotkin's books ever since he put out his classic "Darwin Machines". So it was with sense of excitement and expectation that I received his "Evolutionary Worlds Without End" in the mail last week.
It doesn't have the "passion" or "fire in the belly" of his earliest works, but it is still a fascinating description of how the work by the "mainstream" players is gradually reaching a consensus about a unified Darwinist approach to the humanities and biological sciences.
Many new insights where scattered throughout the book and I was especially taken by his chapter on coevolution. A satisfying read containing a lot to think about. It definitely shows the direction in which the life sciences and humanities are heading.
Evolutionary Worlds without End OverviewDiversity and complexity are the hallmarks of living forms. Yet science aims for general causal explanations of its observations. So how can these be reconciled within the non-physical sciences?Is it possible for a science of life to conform to the requirements of a general theory - the type of theory seen in a 'hard' science such as physics? These are the questions that are explored in this important new book. In Evolutionary Worlds Without End, Henry Plotkin considers whether there is any general theory in biology, including the social sciences, that is in any way equivalent to the general theories of physics. It starts by examining Ernest Rutherford's famous dictum as to what science is. In the later chapters he considers the possibility, within an historical framework, of a general theory being based upon selection processes.Throughout, the author constructs a compelling argument for the idea that there are within biology, and that includes the social sciences, something like the general theories that make physics such powerful science. The book will be valuable for all those in the biological and social sciences, in particular, biologists, psychologists, as well as philosophers of science.

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This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession Review

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This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession ReviewThere are questions that are too big for science; are there gods, for instance, or what is love? And maybe we will never fully find out scientifically why music does what it does and why we care about it so. But for many reasons, music ought to be a profitable subject for scientific enquiry. It is, as Pythagoras knew, an activity strongly rooted in mathematics, and the physics of music is fairly well understood. It is as universal as language; all human cultures have some sort of music, indicating it does something indispensable. And we are increasingly able to figure out, with our sophisticated brain imaging gadgets, what brains do when they hear or think about music. The neuroscience of music is the area of expertise of Daniel J. Levitin, and he writes of it in _This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession_ (Dutton), a fascinating account of current music psychology. Levitin has produced a book wonderfully accessible to lay readers, since although he is an academic (he runs the Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition, and Expertise at McGill University), before he became a scientist, he had been a performing musician, sound engineer, and record producer, working with names like Steely Dan and Blue Oyster Cult. He does pull examples from Bach and Beethoven, but he is obviously more comfortable citing universally-known tunes like "Happy Birthday to You", "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", or "Stairway to Heaven". (Readers whose tastes range in previous epochs will possibly be surprised at the sophistication modern popular musicians have displayed.) Levitin has a good sense of humor and is a genial explainer.
He starts out with a forty page first chapter "What is Music?", which is as good a short explanation of key concepts as tone, scale, fifths, and timbre as anyone could want, and is a fine foundation for all that comes after, a collection of scientific lore and tidbits from all over. For instance, even if you are not a musician, you have a huge store of tunes in your memory. You may not have perfect pitch, the ability to know that an A flat is an A flat as soon as you hear it, but Levitin's own research has provided surprising evidence that your sense of pitch, even if you are not a musician, is really quite good. Subjects who were asked to sing a song from memory got the absolute pitch just right, or very close; they did the same with the song's tempo. There are differences in the brains of musicians and nonmusicians. The corpus callosum, the mass of fibers that connects the right brain hemisphere to the left, is larger in musicians, and is especially larger in those that started music training early. The overall lesson here, though, is that we are all musical, even if we are not musicians, and so non-expert musical brains are really very similar to expert ones. There are descriptions here of surprising research that makes clear how truly ready our brains are to incorporate musical experience. Fetuses in the last three months of gestation, for instance, can hear music within the womb, along with other outside and inside noises. Experiments have shown that if you repeatedly play a song into the womb, and then make sure the child does not hear it again after birth until it is one year old, and then play the music again, the infant will prefer hearing the womb-music rather than completely novel music. This was true whether the experimental music was Vivaldi or the Backstreet Boys.
Levitin certainly has connections; he tells of discussions with Francis Crick about themes in this book, as well as with Joni Mitchell. The final chapter, "The Music Instinct", is a response to cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, who spoke at a 1997 convention of researchers in music perception and cognition. Pinker took the dismissive stance that music was "auditory cheesecake", tickling the parts of the brain that were really for the important functions of language and (unlike language) useless as a force in human evolution. It is not surprising that Levitin and his fellow researchers disagree. Darwin himself felt that musical tones were used in conveying emotion and that those who were able to expend energy in singing or playing were demonstrating biological and sexual fitness. Musical success does make for high numbers of opportunities for spreading one's genes (just ask Mick Jagger). Interest in music peaks in adolescence, indicating a role in sexual selection. Music has been around longer than agriculture, and there is no evidence that language actually preceded music in our species. It may have promoted the cognitive development that was harnessed for speech. Only in the past few hundred years did music become a spectator activity, but in the eons when it could have shaped our social evolution, it was a group activity that may have promoted group togetherness and synchrony. It is an engaging final argument that serves to emphasize the importance of all that the book has presented before, a demonstration that looking at an important human activity in a scientific way only increases our wonder and delight in the activity itself.This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession Overview

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Human Hand Function Review

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Human Hand Function ReviewThis book was an excellent read. Not only did it educate me beyond belief, about the function of the human hand, in terms of tacile and haptic sensory, but also lead me down a path of the history of human development in the anatomny of the hand. I would recommend this book to anyone who appriciates a book of science that could actually change your outlook on the scientific world. Thank you Jones and Lederman.Human Hand Function OverviewHuman Hand Function is a multidisciplinary book that reviews the sensory and motor aspects of normal hand function from both neurophysiological and behavioral perspectives. Lynette Jones and Susan Lederman present hand function as a continuum ranging from activities that are essentially sensory in nature to those that have a strong motor component. They delineate four categories of function along this sensorimotor continuum--tactile sensing, active haptic sensing, prehension, and non-prehensile skilled movements--that they use as a framework for analyzing and synthesizing the results from a broad range of studies that have contributed to our understanding of how the normal human hand functions.The book begins with a historical overview of research on the hand and a discussion of the hand's evolutionary development in terms of anatomical structure. The subsequent chapters review the research in each of the four categories along the continuum, covering topics such as the intensive spatial, temporal, and thermal sensitivity of the hand, the role of hand movements in recognizing common objects, the control of reaching and grasping movements, and the organization of keyboard skills. Jones and Lederman also examine how sensory and motor function develops in the hand from birth to old age, and how the nature of the end effector (e.g., a single finger or the whole hand) that is used to interact with the environment influences the types of information obtained and the tasks performed. The book closes with an assessment of how basic research on the hand has contributed to an array of more applied domains, including communication systems for the blind, haptic interfaces used in teleoperation and virtual-environment applications, tests used to assess hand impairments, and haptic exploration in art. Human Hand Function will be a valuable resource for student and professional researchers in neuroscience, cognitive psychology, engineering, human-technology interaction, and physiology.

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The Human Brain: Essentials of Behavioral Neuroscience Review

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The Human Brain: Essentials of Behavioral Neuroscience ReviewThis book possesses all the features one would expect from a textbook on brain anatomy and physiology, with the possible exception of end of chapter activities to promote learning. And with so many concepts and terminology, that would have been a good inclusion.
The loss of a star is due to the lack of some critical information and, perhaps, an unbalanced coverage of information I would expect to find, combined with too few illustrations of complex concepts.
For example, when discussing mood disorders, one of the most prevalent, AD(H)D has been omitted. Also, in the discussion of brain plasticity, no mention is made of Hebb or his famous mnemonic, "neurons that fire together, wire together." Nor does the author even mention critical brain functions such as attention and consciousness.
Especially troubling is the exclusion of information about an exciting and highly significant discovery--"mirror neurons"-- given their impact on behavior and learning. Since the studies that discovered them were reported well before this book was published, timing does not serve as a justification for ommision of this important information.
For a book with "behavioral" in the subtitle, I would expect more physiology and less anatomy and pharmacology. Although some seminal thinkers in neuroscience such as Damasio and LeDoux are mentioned, other notables such as Candace Pert and Jeffrey Schwartz are missing.
The book covers a lot of territory in a generally understandable manner, using good textbook techniques (such as the bolding of newly introduced technical terms), but perhaps too much information, not necessarily of the right kind, or in the best way. For a better understanding of this complex subject, the reader would be advised to add other references such as Rita Carter's highly accesible overview of the brain called, "Mapping the Mind" along with some of the brain coloring books as an aid to learning brain anatomy and physiology.The Human Brain: Essentials of Behavioral Neuroscience OverviewThis book is a conceptually driven and accessible introduction to behavioral neuroscience. Focused, concise and coherent, it reflects integrative trends in the field while making human neuroscience accessible to a wider student audience.Conceptually driven and concise. The field of biological psychology and behavioral neuroscience has grown exponentially in the past decade, and most textbooks have responded by becoming bloated tomes that drown students in unnecessary factoids.Beatty provides just the essentials necessary in a text that is focused, concise, and coherent. A contemporary integrative approach with an emphasis on behavior. Some books in this market focus more on biological mechanisms at the expense of how the biology t

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Neuropsychology of Art: Neurological, Cognitive and Evolutionary Perspectives (Brain, Behaviour and Cognition) Review

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Neuropsychology of Art: Neurological, Cognitive and Evolutionary Perspectives (Brain, Behaviour and Cognition) ReviewIntrigued by the promise of its title, I zipped over to my local university library as soon as this book came in. Alas, this is not only the last word on the topic, it is not even an adequate summary of recent work.
The author is a neuroscientist herself, but the usual penetrating and synthesizing insight of such specialists seems lacking here. In her chapters on musical art and brain damage, I miss the central focus of this kind of study: the scientist learns about brain function from those who have lost a specific piece of it. Zaidel refers to some interesting studies and historical anecdotes (musicians who sustained this or that kind of brain damage), but I the reader do not learn what I want to from the discussions. I learn details, but the stories and studies do not cumulate in a big picture. Of course modern brain research is still developing, yet other researchers give me more of a sense that they can intuit a big picture beyond what they can clearly see.
Also in the music section, Zaidel's end-of-section paragraph of summary does not include major insights derived from Isabelle Peretz, one of the foremost neuroscientists of music, though Zaidel cites a couple of Peretz' publications in her bibliographies. Peretz gives a significantly better explanation of currently understood brain processing of musical phenomena than Zaidel does, but you wouldn't know from this book. It's not a bad book, just not a great one.Neuropsychology of Art: Neurological, Cognitive and Evolutionary Perspectives (Brain, Behaviour and Cognition) OverviewThe significance of art in human existence has long been a source of puzzlement, fascination, and mystery. In Neuropsychology of Art, Dahlia W. Zaidel explores the brain regions and neuronal systems that support artistic creativity, talent, and appreciation.Both the visual and musical arts are discussed against a neurological background. Evidence from the latest relevant brain research is presented and critically examined in an attempt to clarify the brain-art relationship, language processing and visuo-spatial perception. The consequences of perceptual problems in famous artists, along with data from autistic savants and established artists with brain damage as a result of unilateral stroke, dementia, or other neurological conditions, are brought into consideration and the effects of damage to specific regions of the brain explored. A major compilation of rare cases of artists with brain damage is provided and the cognitive abilities required for the neuropsychology of art reviewed.This book draws on interdisciplinary principles from the biology of art, brain evolution, anthropology, and the cinema through to the question of beauty, language, perception, and hemispheric specialization. It will be of interest to advanced students in neuro-psychology, neuroscience and neurology, to clinicians and all researchers and scholars interested in the workings of the human brain.

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The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Building and Rebuilding the Human Brain Review

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The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Building and Rebuilding the Human Brain ReviewDr. Cozolino has effectively addressed the fragmentation of physiological and psychological approaches to clinical disorders, laying a groundwork for the inevitable meshing of these two broad approaches to dealing with human problems. Increasingly our growing understanding of brain physiology provides opportunities to look for psychological correlates to various brain states. Covering the spectrum of psychological disciplines and relating them to physiological research, he demonstrates cases where a two-pronged therapy makes sense. His book is interspersed with actual case history examples from his practice, and fascinating contemporary neuroscience research. Whereas there is an interesting summary of brain physiology and a broad view of research, the book is clearly written, nicely organized and absorbing in its coverage. Recommended for those who want a view of where treatment of psychopathology is headed, balancing and integrating the psyche and soma.The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Building and Rebuilding the Human Brain Overview
For years, the brain has been viewed as a relatively static entity,determined by the interaction of genetic preprogramming and earlychildhood experience.
In contrast to this view, recent theoretical perspectives and technological advances in brain imaging have revealed that the brain is an organ continually built and re-built by one's experiences. We are now beginning to learn that many forms of psychotherapy, developed in the absence of any scientific understanding of the brain, are supported by neuroscientific findings. Louis Cozolino's The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy illustrates in a clearly written and accessible way how the brain's architecture is related to the problems, passions, and aspirations of human beings. As Cozolino so eloquently argues, all forms of psychotherapy-from psychoanalysis to behavioral interventions-are successful to the extent to which they enhance change in relevant neural circuits.Beginning with an overview of the intersecting fields of neuroscience and psychotherapy, this book delves into the brain's inner workings, from basic neuronal building blocks to complex systems of memory, language, and the organization of experience. It continues by explaining the development and organization of the healthy brain and the unhealthy brain. Common problems such as anxiety, trauma, and codependency are discussed from a scientific and clinical perspective. Cozolino concludes by introducing the emerging paradigm of the psychotherapist-as-neuroscientist and presents some practical applications of neuroscience to psychotherapy. Throughout the book, the science behind the brain's workings is applied to day-to-day experience and clinical practice.Written for psychotherapists and others interested in the relationship between brain and behavior, this book encourages us to consider the brain when attempting to understand human development, mental illness, and psychological health.

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Infant/Child Mental Health, Early Intervention, and Relationship-Based Therapies: A Neurorelational Framework for Interdisciplinary Practice (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) Review

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Infant/Child Mental Health, Early Intervention, and Relationship-Based Therapies: A Neurorelational Framework for Interdisciplinary Practice (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) ReviewInfant/Child Mental Health, Early Intervention, and Relationship-Based Therapies: A Neurorelational Framework for Interdisciplinary Practice was designed to to be used by a wide range of mental health and educational professionals. Using this overall framework it is possible to view a child's maturation (or lack of such) from a number of different perspectives and can be used by all the concerned disciplines thereby avoiding the current problems of them not being able to view the child as a `whole being.' My feeling is that this approach would revolutionize the way we deal with children who struggle in school. The framework would also be useful when working with adults, since the same work of seeing the `whole person' exists for them as well.

------Pam Fleissig, teacherInfant/Child Mental Health, Early Intervention, and Relationship-Based Therapies: A Neurorelational Framework for Interdisciplinary Practice (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) Overview
A groundbreaking neuroscientific understanding of infant and child development, including a CD-ROM with supplementary worksheets, figures and tables.
When early interventions with children fail, clinicians wonder: How couldthings have been different? The answers seem obvious at first, but a littlereflection begins to unveil just how complicated this question really is. Whoshould have been included in the treatment? With what professionals and usingwhat approaches? When should intervention have occurred? Each questioninvolves a spectrum of both personal and societal issues, which is perhaps whyproblems that are so widely acknowledged remain so widely ignored. Often, afamily is not aware that their story could have had a different ending.So, in response to the critical need for a more cohesive system of care for ouryoungest patients, this book presents a conceptual framework for interdisciplinarycollaboration. Examining the issues of infant mental health and early interventionfrom a brain-based perspective-one that cuts across all domains-addresses the need for individual practitioners to incorporate the whole picturein relation to their part in assessing and intervening with each individual childand parent, and provides a global framework for team collaboration.

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The Psychophysiology of Self-Awareness: Rediscovering the Lost Art of Body Sense (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) Review

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The Psychophysiology of Self-Awareness: Rediscovering the Lost Art of Body Sense (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) ReviewAlan Fogel is that rare combination, a deeply informed scientist and a clear, compassionate writer for the general reader. I bought the book for my adult son who has mild Tourette's, OCD and ADD. But its chapters will illuminate and improve the lives of men, women, and children who suffer from tension, soreness, or general anxiety; or merely provide a good read for anyone with a philosophic interest in body/mind/soul.The Psychophysiology of Self-Awareness: Rediscovering the Lost Art of Body Sense (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) Overview
The practice and science of feeling our movements, sensations, and emotions.
Embodied self-awareness is the practice and science of our ability to feel ourmovements, sensations, and emotions. As infants, before we can speak orconceptualize, we learn to move toward what makes us feel good and awayfrom what makes us feel bad. Our ability to continue to develop and cultivateawareness of such body-based feelings and understanding is essential forlearning how to successfully navigate in the physical and social world, as wellas for avoiding injury and stress. Embodied self-awareness is made possibleby neuromotor and neurohormonal pathways between the brain and the restof the body, pathways that serve the function of using information about bodystate to maintain optimal health and well being. When these pathways becomecompromised, primarily as a result of physical injury or psychological stress andtrauma, we lose our ability to monitor and regulate our basic body functions.This book explains the neurological basis of embodied self-awareness, how toenhance self-awareness, and how to regain it after injury or trauma.

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Best Practices in School Neuropsychology: Guidelines for Effective Practice, Assessment, and Evidence-Based Intervention (Wiley Desktop Editions) Review

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Best Practices in School Neuropsychology: Guidelines for Effective Practice, Assessment, and Evidence-Based Intervention (Wiley Desktop Editions) ReviewBest Practices in School Neuropsychology is a well-written guidebook for school psychologists who believe that an important goal of education is to provide experiences that result in maximum possible learning for individual students and who wish to pursue a brain-based and cognitive route to practice. This book is of particular importance when considering the education of learners with diverse neurobiological systems who arrive at school with great variations in their readiness to succeed academically. The field of school neuropsychology offers guidance to school psychologists for both assessing these individuals and assisting teachers to remediate student challenges and teach to learners' strengths.
Importantly, in the foreword by Elaine Fletcher-Janzen, the reader is reminded of the importance of neuroscientific findings in the area of reading. Specifically, that the brain has a greater degree of plasticity than once thought and that through educational interventions we can achieve long-term positive reading outcomes. Later, Fletcher-Janzen continues `Executive functions, for example, are critical to reading comprehension.' Today when psychologists examine executive functions we can also see how the child's attention and memory work. Exploring these and other cognitive functions can assist school psychologists to guide other educators in order to differentiate instruction.
The editor implies that as the 1990s, the so called `Decade of the Brain,' fade into the past and each decade brings more excitement and information about human potential, it seems that school psychologists interested in the brain and cognitive connections have a meaningful part to play both in research and practice. School neuropsychologists can bring important knowledge about cognitive processes to the discussion of brain function and student achievement to inform research as well as practice in schools.
This book is organized broadly around three topics: 1) Professional issues in school neuropsychology, 2) Practice issues in school neuropsychology, and 3) Clinical applications in school neuropsychology. Editor, Daniel Miller, has provided a book that contains current and key information for school psychologists who may be interested in obtaining further education in the field, or those who may want to read to enhance their understanding of the brain and cognition, for example in areas such as RTI (Response to Intervention) and assessment of children with various learning challenges including academic disabilities, processing deficits, and medical disorders. Lastly, it should be mentioned that also included is `the rationale for the importance of school psychologists' collaboration with parents, educators and other professionals' in the community and `unique challenges in working with culturally diverse populations.'
Donna Wilson, Ph.D.Best Practices in School Neuropsychology: Guidelines for Effective Practice, Assessment, and Evidence-Based Intervention (Wiley Desktop Editions) OverviewA comprehensive guide to the practice of school neuropsychology
It is an exciting time to specialize in school neuropsychology, with countless theoretically and psychometrically sound assessment instruments available for practitioners to use in their evaluations of children with special needs. Yet the field faces the challenges of establishing evidence-based linkages between assessment and interventions and of broadening its approaches to culturally diverse populations.
Edited by a leading expert in school neuropsychology, Best Practices in School Neuropsychology: Guidelines for Effective Practice, Assessment, and Evidence-Based Intervention addresses these challenges and their solutions and provides learning specialists and school psychologists with clear coverage and vital information on this burgeoning area of practice within school psychology.
This insightful reference features comprehensive discussion of:

Current school neuropsychological assessment and intervention models

Best practices in assessing cognitive processes

An overview of what neuroscience offers to the practice of school neuropsychology

How school neuropsychology fits within a Response to Intervention (RTI) model

The rationale for the importance of school psychologists' collaboration with parents, educators, and other professionals to maximize services to children

Clinical applications of school neuropsychology with special populations, academic disabilities, processing deficits, and medical disorders

Unique challenges in working with culturally diverse populations

Featuring contributions from internationally renowned school psychologists, neuropsychologists, clinicians, and academics, Best Practices in School Neuropsychology is the first book of its kind to present best practices and evidence-informed guidelines for the assessment and intervention of children with learning disabilities, as well as other issues practitioners working with children encounter in school settings.

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Cognition, Brain, and Consciousness, Second Edition: Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience Review

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Cognition, Brain, and Consciousness, Second Edition: Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience ReviewI have been teaching "Mind, Brain and Behavior", and introductory course in Cognitive Neuroscience, for the past 10 years to college students at Columbia University and the City University of New York. After using Gazzaniga, Ivry and Mangun's "Cognitive Neuroscience: Biology of the Mind" for 8 of those years, I decided to try the Baars text because it appeared to have a strong overarching theme that would provide for greater pedagogy than my previous text. Indeed, skimming the text and the chapters suggests that it would be a beautiful, up-to-date and well-integrated treatment of cognitive neuroscience, with an emphasis on consciousness that is aligned with my own interests. So I assigned it to my class of 100.
I should have read it more carefully before doing that. In fact, I spent the semester trying to help them figure out what the figures really meant (since they didn't actually match what was discussed in the text much of the time), clarify concepts that came out of the blue, and generally apologizing to the students for all the clerical errors. It was frustrating for them and for me. Many of them wanted their money back from the publisher.
For students who are trying to learn new material, poor editing is particularly damaging because it creates unnecessary confusion (on top of the necessary confusion that comes with approaching challenging material). Even experts or interested laypeople shouldn't have to struggle through such poor editing in order to get information.
Needless to say, I'm not using the Baars text anymore. Hopefully, the 2nd edition will be better edited. I don't think it could be worse - in fact I've never read anything that was so poorly executed.
One positive note: I would say that the powerpoint slides that came with the instructor's version of the text were actually more useful than most instructor materials. Also, it has a cool bookmark.Cognition, Brain, and Consciousness, Second Edition: Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience Overview
This is the fully revised and updated second edition of the very sucessful introductory textbook on cognitive neuroscience. Written by two leading experts in the field, thisbook takes a unique thematic approach to introduce concepts of cognitive neurosciences, guiding students along a clear path to understand the latest findings whether or not they have a background in neuroscience. New to this edition are Frontiers in Cognitive Neuroscience text boxes; each one focuses on a leading researcher and their topic of expertise. There is a new chapter on Genes and Molecules of Cognition, and all other chapters have been thoroughly revised, based on the most recent discoveries.

New edition of a very successful textbook
Completely revisedto reflect new advances, and feedback from adopters and students
Includes a new chapter on Genes and Molecules of Cognition
Student Solutions available at http://www.baars-gage.com/

For Teachers:


Rapid adoption and course preparation: A wide array of instructor support materials are available online including PowerPoint lecture slides, a test bank with answers, and eFlashcords on key concepts for each chapter.
A textbook with an easy-to-understand thematic approach: in a way that is clear for students from a variety of academic backgrounds, the text introduces concepts such as working memory, selective attention, and social cognition.
A step-by-step guide for introducing students to brain anatomy: color graphics have been carefully selected to illustrate all points and the research explained. Beautifully clear artist's drawings are used to 'build a brain' from top to bottom, simplifying the layout of the brain.

For students:


An easy-to-read, complete introduction to mind-brain science: all chapters begin from mind-brain functions and build a coherent picture of their brain basis. A single, widely accepted functional framework is used to capture the major phenomena.
Learning Aids include a student support site with study guides and exercises, a new Mini-Atlas of the Brain and a full Glossary of technical terms and their definitions.
Richly illustrated with hundreds of carefully selected color graphics to enhance understanding.


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Introduction to Neuropsychology, Second Edition Review

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Introduction to Neuropsychology, Second Edition ReviewThe only thing harder than brain surgery is mastering it without cutting the head open. "Introduction to Neurospsychology" is what it says it is - a scholarly introduction to science of neuropsychology. With a scientific dissection of the human brain and why it affects humanity the way it does, it's an explanation that will move those learning about the field far in their knowledge. Now in a newly expanded and updated second edition covering well more than two decades of brain science, "Introduction to Neuropsychology" is a must for any college library reference or psychology collection.Introduction to Neuropsychology, Second Edition OverviewThis outstanding text gives students a solid grounding in clinical and experimental neuropsychology. The author is a leading authority whose engaging writing style and thorough yet concise coverage of brain localization, anatomy, and their links to cognitive function make the book ideal for undergraduate or graduate use. It is illustrated with more than 60 figures, including six color plates.


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Doctor Dolittle's Delusion: Animals and the Uniqueness of Human Language Review

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Doctor Dolittle's Delusion: Animals and the Uniqueness of Human Language ReviewProfessor Anderson asserts that Dr. Dolittle might have been able to 'talk to animals' but they could not talk back. I enjoyed Rex Harrison as the kindly animal doc in the Disney movie, and the song in particular. He points out that it was Hugh Lofting's 'fictional' character who could communicate perhaps with all of his animal friends, but they, in turn, were unable to use intelligible language.
I've owned cats on a daily basis for more than twenty-five years now and they do talk to me. They do understand English (I swear) and their meows mean something as well. It's just that I don't know 'cat talk.' It's not merely a response; when Star awakens from a dream, she runs to me with a whole string of meows to be soothed. I explain that it was only a dream and she settles down right away. It's all in the interpretations, usually they want your attention, food, or could be informing you that something may be wrong. She lets me know when she hears an unusual sound. And she minds me real well.
He discusses sign language as a way of communicating with gestures called 'signing,' that apes possibly use a similar way of getting what they need. Frogs make their distinct noises, birds sing, bees buzz and 'dance.' Some birds can talk and mimic humans, but I'm not sure they know what they're doing; it appears they are 'entertaining' to get people's attention.
Understanding of the minds of others emerges in human infancy. Austistic children lack this ability of comprehension. Language skills require interaction with early experience and the autistic child can not express his needs verbally.
Human language is indeed unique, but sometimes regional dialects get in the way. There are so many foreigners in America today, they don't even try to speak English. Why should they? We all talk differently and can hardly understand each other. I remember while growing up in Knoxville that I and my idol, Bob Lobertini (a t.v. personality), had trouble pronouncing the "L" sound. We just left it out. Recently at a dinner, I heard a grown woman call 'salmon' 'samon' and I commented on it. Just because I moved away and learned to enunciate clearly instead of shy mumbling, the natives here assume I'm from "up North." I certainly don't sound like a New Yorker or Pennsylvanian, but I do talk differently -- as we all tend to speak the way we hear others talk, and it "rubs off" after awhile.
It takes intelligence to work through the ambiguities of phrases as units instead of words fitted together to form a sentence. If you move a phrase, it can cause a different meaning to the whole thing, or can clear up any misunderstanding. Many English expressions are ambiguous. But so are the verbs in another language. That's what trips me up.Doctor Dolittle's Delusion: Animals and the Uniqueness of Human Language Overview

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Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought (Bradford Books) Review

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Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought (Bradford Books) ReviewThe model (theory) of the world that an intelligence will form
depends upon the particular representation used by the learner.
(Machine Learning, Tom Mitchell, McGraw Hill, 1997, pgs 65-66)
While this is rigorously true for the learner's INTERNAL
representation (i.e. the language of thought) it will also
apply to NATURAL languages that the agent employs to the
degree that reasoning is performed in the natural language
and/or to the degree to which the natural language mirrors
the language of thought. This dependence of the learner's
understanding of the world on his language may help to
explain why translation between natural languages is so
difficult. Gentner and Goldin-Meadow's book does a good
job of discussing current research in this area.Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought (Bradford Books) OverviewThe idea that the language we speak influences the way we think has evoked perennial fascination and intense controversy. According to the strong version of this hypothesis, called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis after the American linguists who propounded it, languages vary in their semantic partitioning of the world, and the structure of one's language influences how one understands the world. Thus speakers of different languages perceive the world differently.Although the last two decades have been marked by extreme skepticism concerning the possible effects of language on thought, recent theoretical and methodological advances in cognitive science have given the question new life. Research in linguistics and linguistic anthropology has revealed striking differences in cross-linguistic semantic patterns, and cognitive psychology has developed subtle techniques for studying how people represent and remember experience. It is now possible to test predictions about how a given language influences the thinking of its speakers.Language in Mind includes contributions from both skeptics and believers and from a range of fields. It contains work in cognitive psychology, cognitive development, linguistics, anthropology, and animal cognition. The topics discussed include space, number, motion, gender, theory of mind, thematic roles, and the ontological distinction between objects and substances. The contributors include Melissa Bowerman, Eve Clark, Jill de Villiers, Peter de Villiers, Giyoo Hatano, Stan Kuczaj, Barbara Landau, Stephen Levinson, John Lucy, Barbara Malt, Dan Slobin, Steven Sloman, Elizabeth Spelke, and Michael Tomasello.

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Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique Review

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Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique ReviewTo understand human social behavior it is necessary to be familiar with most (if not all) of the material Michael Gazzaniga covers in this seminal summary of how humans are alike and different from other animals. Since Dr. Gazzaniga is not only a pioneering neuroscientist, but also an accomplished writer noted for his ability to render scientific material understandable and entertaining, there is likely no better way to become familiar with leading edge thinking on human behavior than by reading "Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique."
Dr. Gazzaniga's stance (as proclaimed in the Prologue) is that although most human activity can be related to antecedents in other animals, somewhere in the evolution of our brain the equivalent of a "phase shift" occurred and we became unique: His rallying cry is "... let us start the journey of understanding why humans are special, and let's have some fun doing it." "Human" succeeds in doing that throughout its nine chapters.
All of the recent discoveries and salient theories from the fields of neuroscience, molecular biology, genetics, evolutionary and cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence (among others) are presented in a cogent and evenhanded way; whenever Dr. Gazzaniga favors one theory over another, he carefully explains why, and the result is that readers can weigh the data and various viewpoints themselves to improve their comprehension of human behavior.
The final chapter looks into the near future and considers likely advances in the emerging neuroprosthetic fields, where brain signals are tapped to control prosthetic devices; in robotics and artificial intelligence, where manmade devices take over Man's "dull, dangerous, or dirty" chores; and in gene therapy and "genetic engineering," where the Pandora's Box of manipulating our very nature may be creaking open. Dr. Gazzaniga's extensive work with the Council on Bioethics (which led to a previous book, "The Ethical Brain") makes him almost uniquely qualified to address the promises and dangers of gene manipulation.
And, yes, a summary can indeed be "seminal" if it brings together findings from many disciplines, lays them out in parallel, and shows how they have a common thread and converge toward a common conclusion.
Adam Leonard (Author of "Man by Nature: The Hidden Programming Controlling Human Behavior.")
Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique Overview

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The Rise and Fall of Languages Review

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The Rise and Fall of Languages ReviewR M Dixon is a well known linguist who specializes in the aboriginal languages of Australia. In this captivating book, Dixon presents his theory of punctuated equilibrium (adopted from the idea of the same name by evolutionary theorists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge) to describe how languages change. Dixon challenges linguists to dedicate more time to the study and description of the thousands of languages on the verge of extinction, rather than devote their energies to arcane formalisms. The author is also highly critical of those historical linguists who claim to have found evidence for the "mother of all languages", accusing them of poor methodology. Historical linguistics involves slow and painstaking analysis of language forms, and Dixon is not the first to chastise newcomers for shoddy work. Dixon's book is not overly technical, and is thus suited for both a professional and a lay audience. Anyone interested in learning more about the evolution of language should read Dixon's latest work.The Rise and Fall of Languages OverviewThis book puts forward a new approach to language change, the punctuated equilibrium model.This is based on the premise that during most of the 100,000 or more years that humans have had language, states of equilibrum have existed during which linguistic features diffused across the languages in a given area so that they gradually converged on a common prototype.From time to time, the state of equilibrium would be punctuated, with the expansion and split of peoples and of languages. Most recently, as a result of European colonization and globalization of communication, many languages face imminent extinction.

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The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human Review

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The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human ReviewThe preeminent neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran has, without a doubt, raised the bar in this, his newest book, The Tell-Tale Brain. He states in the preface, "Readers who have assiduously followed my whole oeuvre over the years will recognize some of the case histories that I presented in my previous books, Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind and A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Impostor Poodles to Purple Numbers. These same readers will be pleased to see that I have new things to say about even my earlier findings and observations. Brain science has advanced at an astonishing pace over the past fifteen years, lending fresh perspectives on - well, just about everything. After decades of floundering in the shadow of the "hard" sciences, the age of neuroscience has truly dawned, and this rapid progress has directed and enriched my own work." And what an enriching book this is!
In a nutshell, what Ramachandran does is to discover how the normal brain works by studying individuals with abnormal neurological conditions. In this respect, his books are similar to Oliver Sacks (The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales and The Mind's Eye). Some of the disorders Ramachandran discusses are: Agnosia, Anosognosia, Autism, Capgras Syndrome, Cotard Syndrome, and Synesthesia, to name a few. However, one of the finest things about Ramachandran's book is that this doesn't account for everything in the book; it's not simply Ramachandran rolling out one bizarre disorder after another. He hits the subject matter from every angle - anatomically, evolutionarily, psychologically, and philosophically. It's exceedingly evident that Ramachandran knows all of the topics - inside-and-out - in regards to mind, brain, and consciousness. And still, the writing was never over my head. It was just as Ramachandran said it would be, "I presume some degree of interest in science and curiosity about human nature, but I do not presume any sort of formal scientific background or even familiarity with my previous works. I hope this book proves instructive and inspiring to students of all levels and backgrounds, to colleagues in other disciplines, and to lay readers with no personal or professional stake in these topics."
Ramachandran states in the Epilogue, "One of the major themes in the book - whether talking about body image, mirror neurons, language evolution, or autism - has been the question of how your inner self interacts with the world (including the social world) while at the same time maintaining its privacy. The curious reciprocity between self and others is especially well developed in humans and probably exists only in rudimentary form in the great apes. I have suggested that many types of mental illness may result from derangements in this equilibrium. Understanding such disorders may pave the way not only for solving the abstract (or should I say philosophical) problem of the self at a theoretical level, but also for treating mental illness."
In conclusion, I strongly recommend reading this book. The writing is great, the style is flawless, and Ramachandran's self deprecating humor really keeps the material lively. Every issue in contemporary Mind/Brain/Consciousness literature has been addressed in one way or another and I think everyone would have something to gain from reading it. I would put this book right on par with Antonio Damasio's, Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain, and Paul Nunez's, Brain, Mind, and the Structure of Reality. Along with V.S. Ramachandran, these men, each in his own way, is pointing the way for the entire Neuroscientific community..."The question of how neurons encode meaning and evoke all the semantic associations of an object is the holy grail of neuroscience, whether you are studying memory, perception, art, or consciousness." Ramachandran's book is not to be missed!The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human Overview

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Language in the Brain Review

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Language in the Brain ReviewLanguage and the Brain demonstrates that locating the organization of language in narrow areas of the brain's cortex is wrong. Language isn't merely articulation and hearing of sounds. Organization of meaning, understanding, cognition, feeling and reasonable action are particularly important especially concerning the understanding of other people's feeling and knowledge.
The book emphasizes the contrast of neural and formal structure analysis. According to Helmut Schnelle as a consequence, interdisciplinary research cannot be avoided.Language in the Brain OverviewLinguistics, neurocognition, and phenomenological psychology are fundamentally different fields of research. Helmut Schnelle provides an interdisciplinary understanding of a new integrated field in which linguists can be competent in neurocognition and neuroscientists in structure linguistics. Consequently the first part of the book is a systematic introduction to the function of the form and meaning-organising brain component - with the essential core elements being perceptions, actions, attention, emotion and feeling. Their descriptions provide foundations for experiences based on semantics and pragmatics. The second part is addressed to non-linguists and presents the structural foundations of currently established linguistic frameworks. This book should be serious reading for anyone interested in a comprehensive understanding of language, in which evolution, functional organisation and hierarchies are explained by reference to brain architecture and dynamics.

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