Foundations And Methods From Mathematics To Neuroscience

"Center for the Study of Language and Information, Leland Stanford Junior University."

This book applies methods from nonlinear dynamics to problems in neuroscience. It uses modern mathematical approaches to understand patterns of neuronal activity seen in experiments and models of neuronal behavior. The intended audience is researchers interested in applying mathematics to important problems in neuroscience, and neuroscientists who would like to understand how to create models, as well as the mathematical and computational methods for analyzing them. The authors take a very broad approach and use many different methods to solve and understand complex models of neurons and circuits. They explain and combine numerical, analytical, dynamical systems and perturbation methods to produce a modern approach to the types of model equations that arise in neuroscience. There are extensive chapters on the role of noise, multiple time scales and spatial interactions in generating complex activity patterns found in experiments. The early chapters require little more than basic calculus and some elementary differential equations and can form the core of a computational neuroscience course. Later chapters can be used as a basis for a graduate class and as a source for current research in mathematical neuroscience. The book contains a large number of illustrations, chapter summaries and hundreds of exercises which are motivated by issues that arise in biology, and involve both computation and analysis. Bard Ermentrout is Professor of Computational Biology and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Pittsburgh. David Terman is Professor of Mathematics at the Ohio State University.

Virtually all scientific problems in neuroscience require mathematical analysis, and all neuroscientists are increasingly required to have a significant understanding of mathematical methods. There is currently no comprehensive, integrated introductory book on the use of mathematics in neuroscience; existing books either concentrate solely on theoretical modeling or discuss mathematical concepts for the treatment of very specific problems. This book fills this need by systematically introducing mathematical and computational tools in precisely the contexts that first established their importance for neuroscience. All mathematical concepts will be introduced from the simple to complex using the most widely used computing environment, Matlab. This book will provide a grounded introduction to the fundamental concepts of mathematics, neuroscience and their combined use, thus providing the reader with a springboard to cutting-edge research topics and fostering a tighter integration of mathematics and neuroscience for future generations of students. A very didactic and systematic introduction to mathematical concepts of importance for the analysis of data and the formulation of concepts based on experimental data in neuroscience Provides introductions to linear algebra, ordinary and partial differential equations, Fourier transforms, probabilities and stochastic processes Introduces numerical methods used to implement algorithms related to each mathematical concept Illustrates numerical methods by applying them to specific topics in neuroscience, including Hodgkin-Huxley equations, probabilities to describe stochastic release, stochastic processes to describe noise in neurons, Fourier transforms to describe the receptive fields of visual neurons Allows the mathematical novice to analyze their results in more sophisticated ways, and consider them in a broader theoretical framework

The study of mathematical cognition and the ways in which the ideas of space, time and number are encoded in brain circuitry has become a fundamental issue for neuroscience. How such encoding differs across cultures and educational level is of further interest in education and neuropsychology. This rapidly expanding field of research is overdue for an interdisciplinary volume such as this, which deals with the neurological and psychological foundations of human numeric capacity. A uniquely integrative work, this volume provides a much needed compilation of primary source material to researchers from basic neuroscience, psychology, developmental science, neuroimaging, neuropsychology and theoretical biology. The first comprehensive and authoritative volume dealing with neurological and psychological foundations of mathematical cognition Uniquely integrative volume at the frontier of a rapidly expanding interdisciplinary field Features outstanding and truly international scholarship, with chapters written by leading experts in a variety of fields

Mathematical Neuroscience is a book for mathematical biologists seeking to discover the complexities of brain dynamics in an integrative way. It is the first research monograph devoted exclusively to the theory and methods of nonlinear analysis of infinite systems based on functional analysis techniques arising in modern mathematics. Neural models that describe the spatio-temporal evolution of coarse-grained variables—such as synaptic or firing rate activity in populations of neurons —and often take the form of integro-differential equations would not normally reflect an integrative approach. This book examines the solvability of infinite systems of reaction diffusion type equations in partially ordered abstract spaces. It considers various methods and techniques of nonlinear analysis, including comparison theorems, monotone iterative techniques, a truncation method, and topological fixed point methods. Infinite systems of such equations play a crucial role in the integrative aspects of neuroscience modeling. The first focused introduction to the use of nonlinear analysis with an infinite dimensional approach to theoretical neuroscience Combines functional analysis techniques with nonlinear dynamical systems applied to the study of the brain Introduces powerful mathematical techniques to manage the dynamics and challenges of infinite systems of equations applied to neuroscience modeling

Biology undergraduates, medical students and life-science graduate students often have limited mathematical skills. Similarly, physics, math and engineering students have little patience for the detailed facts that make up much of biological knowledge. Teaching computational neuroscience as an integrated discipline requires that both groups be brought forward onto common ground. This book does this by making ancillary material available in an appendix and providing basic explanations without becoming bogged down in unnecessary details. The book will be suitable for undergraduates and beginning graduate students taking a computational neuroscience course and also to anyone with an interest in the uses of the computer in modeling the nervous system.

Arising from several courses taught by the authors, this book provides a needed overview illustrating how dynamical systems and computational analysis have been used in understanding the types of models that come out of neuroscience.