Foundations Of The Neuron Doctrine

Cover -- Foundations of the Neuron Doctrine -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface to the 25th Anniversary Edition -- Preface to the Original Publication -- Commentaries on the "Neuron Doctrine"--Cajal, Golgi, and Ariadne's Thread-Marina Bentivoglio -- Reflections on the Neuron Doctrine-Javier DeFelipe -- The Neuron Doctrine Revisited: A Personal Account-Sten Grillner -- Camillo Golgi, Foundations of the Neuron Doctrine, and the History of Neuroscience-Paolo Mazzarello -- Some Reflections on the Neuron Doctrine-Larry Swanson -- Back to Golgi? Neural Networks as a New Paradigm for Brain Circuits-Rafael Yuste -- 1. Introduction -- 2. From the Beginnings to the Cell Theory -- 3. Do Nerve Cells Belong in the Cell Theory? -- 4. Nerve Cells or Nerve Nets? -- 5. KÖlliker Gives In -- 6. Support Builds for Networks -- 7. The Nerve Cell Studies of Freud -- 8. The Revolutionary Method of Golgi -- 9. A Neuron Theory Begins to Take Form: His, Forel, Nansen -- 10. Ramón y Cajal: The Shock of Recognition -- 11. The Early Discoveries of Cajal -- 12. The Laws of Cajal -- 13. Joining the Mainstream -- 14. The Neuron Doctrine -- 15. The Law of Dynamic Polarization -- 16. Controversy -- 17. The Synapse and the Growth Cone -- 18. Forging a Consensus -- 19. Confrontation in Stockholm -- 20. Modern Revisions of the Neuron Doctrine -- References -- Index.

The author makes a unique contribution to the field by discussing the history and philosophy of the neurosciences, and then developing critical approaches which integrate techniques, theory, and ethics. Taken as a whole, Jacobson's work will provide a coherent and humane framework for future research programs. The paperback edition of this highly successful text, first published in 1993, is now available! The author brings the ethics of neuroscience into a closer relationship with empirical research. Covering the field's history, philosophy, theories, and techniques, this volume provides the necessary moral and ethical framework to evaluate neuroscience research.

Neuroscience has largely abandoned its localizationist and mechanistic framework of the 20th century. The plastic, embodied, and network character of our nervous system is widely acknowledged and systems theory approaches to consciousness dominate the field. However, the underlying neuron theory has not changed. The neuron doctrine, conceptualizing the single neuron as atomistic, one-directional source of neural function, still provides the template for our understanding of these basic elements of our nervous system and the material foundation of consciousness. Yet, the single neuron does not exist as an isolated unit. It is embedded within multiple cellular, structural, and functional contexts, and highly depends on them for its development, neural activity, and survival. The book discusses the constraints of the neuron doctrine and its pragmatic reductionism in the light of the growing knowledge about the brain’s connectivity, plasticity, and systemic and embodied nature. To overcome these constraints, the author argues for a new neuron theory, depicting the neuron as bidirectional hub which is at the same time source and product of neural function. This bidirectionality is further characterized by spatial and time dimensions, placing the neuron within a multi-level pathway model of psychobiological development from the perspective of Developmental Embodiment Research. Furthermore, the author discusses the potential of neuroepigenetic markers to characterize the neuron and its range of plasticity within this developmental perspective.With its focus on neuroepigenetics, the book addresses a knowledge gap in the current study of the neural foundations of psychological functions. The multi-level and bidirectional perspective is already realized in approaches coming from developmental systems theory, which model neural function at the connectome level, and it also fits with approaches investigating feedback loops underlying neural activity at the single cell level. At both these levels, the spatial and the time dimensions are well characterized, either as changing connectivity patterns across different age groups, or as synaptic feedback loops underlying neural activation patterns. However, for the intermediate level of small neural populations, which is currently the main target for studies investigating the neural basis of specific psychological functions, this characterization turned out to be more challenging. Multi-cell recordings have provided a first glimpse into the complex interaction patterns of these small neural networks, but they are limited to the recording period and do not provide information about the long-term developmental and activation history. Here, neuroepigenetic markers could be of use. Due to their relative stability and, at the same time, environmental sensitivity, neuroepigenetic markers represent an additional layer of information in which, to a certain degree, the cell’s metabolic and activation history is aggregated over time. This information is available at the single neuron level but could also be modeled as aggregated information for small neural populations and the supporting cellular context. Looking through this “epigenetic lens” adds to our understanding of the neuron as bidirectional hub by emphasizing the molecular correlates of functional stabilization and their contextual prerequisites. These prerequisites reach from the immediate cellular context to the social-cultural contexts which shape the culturally specific modes of acquisition of psychological functions throughout the lifespan. Accounting for this multilayered contextuality of the neuron and its function affords to repositions the relationship between neuroscience and psychology in their joint effort to unravel the material basis of consciousness. This provides new challenges but also new perspectives for theoretical psychology. The book presents these current developments and debates to researchers, graduate students, and interested professionals and practitioners working in neuroscience, epigenetics, psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy. It also provides a basic introduction into neuroepigenetics, its mechanisms, and first findings for graduate students as well as interested professionals and practitioners working in psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy.

Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934) is widely thought of as the founder of modern neuroscience; and his work is more frequently cited than that of any other scientist in the field. In this seminal book, Cajal summarized for a broad audience the modem cellular view of brain organization. This clear, direct, and accurate translation provides an excellent introduction to Cajal's work, making accessible for the first time the ideas that led Cajal to favor the neuron doctrine that revolutionized neuroscience and won for him (with his rival, Camillo Golgi) the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1906. New Ideas on the Structure of the Nervous System in Man and Vertebrates presents the histological evidence for the laws governing the form and connections of nerve cells. This work and the principles that emerged from it formed the cornerstone for our current understanding of how the nervous system is organized. The book also presents in simplified form the ideas contained in Cajal's famous survey of vertebrate neurohistology, Histologie du Systeme Nerveux de l'Homme et des Vertebres, unquestionably the most important book ever published in neuroanatomy, and which to this day has not been translated and published in English because of its extraordinary length. Neely Swanson is a scholar of romance languages. Larry W. Swanson is Senior Member of the Salk Institute, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego, and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

In order to focus on principles, each chapter in this work is brief, organized around 1-3 wiring diagrams of the key circuits, with several pages of text that distil the functional significance of each microcircuit

The second edition of the seminal work in the field—revised, updated, and extended In Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, M.R. Bennett and P.M.S. Hacker outline and address the conceptual confusions encountered in various neuroscientific and psychological theories. The result of a collaboration between an esteemed philosopher and a distinguished neuroscientist, this remarkable volume presents an interdisciplinary critique of many of the neuroscientific and psychological foundations of modern cognitive neuroscience. The authors point out conceptual entanglements in a broad range of major neuroscientific and psychological theories—including those of such neuroscientists as Blakemore, Crick, Damasio, Dehaene, Edelman, Gazzaniga, Kandel, Kosslyn, LeDoux, Libet, Penrose, Posner, Raichle and Tononi, as well as psychologists such as Baar, Frith, Glynn, Gregory, William James, Weiskrantz, and biologists such as Dawkins, Humphreys, and Young. Confusions arising from the work of philosophers such as Dennett, Chalmers, Churchland, Nagel and Searle are subjected to detailed criticism. These criticisms are complemented by constructive analyses of the major cognitive, cogitative, emotional and volitional attributes that lie at the heart of cognitive neuroscientific research. Now in its second edition, this groundbreaking work has been exhaustively revised and updated to address current issues and critiques. New discussions offer insight into functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the notions of information and representation, conflict monitoring and the executive, minimal states of consciousness, integrated information theory and global workspace theory. The authors also reply to criticisms of the fundamental arguments posed in the first edition, defending their conclusions regarding mereological fallacy, the necessity of distinguishing between empirical and conceptual questions, the mind-body problem, and more. Essential as both a comprehensive reference work and as an up-to-date critical review of cognitive neuroscience, this landmark volume: Provides a scientifically and philosophically informed survey of the conceptual problems in a wide variety of neuroscientific theories Offers a clear and accessible presentation of the subject, minimizing the use of complex philosophical and scientific jargon Discusses how the ways the brain relates to the mind affect the intelligibility of neuroscientific research Includes fresh insights on mind-body and mind-brain relations, and on the relation between the notion of person and human being Features more than 100 new pages and a wealth of additional diagrams, charts, and tables Continuing to challenge and educate readers like no other book on the subject, the second edition of Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience is required reading not only for neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers, but also for academics, researchers, and students involved in the study of the mind and consciousness.

In science, sometimes it is best to keep things simple. Initially discrediting the discovery of neurons in jellyfish, mid-nineteenth-century scientists grouped jellyfish, comb-jellies, hydra, and sea anemones together under one term - "coelenterates" - and deemed these animals too similar to plants to warrant a nervous system. In Dawn of the Neuron, Michel Anctil shows how Darwin's theory of evolution completely eradicated this idea and cleared the way for the modern study of the neuron. Once zoologists accepted the notion that varying levels of animal complexity could evolve, they began to use simple-structured creatures such as coelenterates and sponges to understand the building blocks of more complicated nervous systems. Dawn of the Neuron provides fascinating insights into the labours and lives of scientists who studied coelenterate nervous systems over several generations, and who approached the puzzling origin of the first nerve cells through the process outlined in evolutionary theory. Anctil also reveals how these scientists, who were willing to embrace improved and paradigm-changing scientific methods, still revealed their cultural backgrounds, their societal biases, and their attachments to schools of thought and academic traditions while presenting their ground-breaking work. Their attitudes toward the neuron doctrine - where neurons are individual, self-contained cells - proved decisive in the exploration of how neurons first emerged. Featuring photographs and historical sketches to illustrate this quest for knowledge, Dawn of the Neuron is a remarkably in-depth exploration of the link between Darwin's theory of evolution and pioneering studies and understandings of the first evolved nervous systems

Cajal's Neuronal Forest: Science and Art continues the tradition set forth by its sister volume Cajal's Butterflies of the Soul (OUP, 2009). This new collection contains hundreds of beautiful rarely-seen-before figures produced throughout the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century by famed father-of-modern-neuroscience Santiago Ram n y Cajal (1852-1934) and his contemporaries. Cajal was captivated by the beautiful shapes of the cells of the nervous system. He and his fellow scientists saw neurons as trees and glial cells as bushes. Given their high density and arrangement, neurons and glial resembled a thick forest, a seemingly impenetrable terrain of interacting cells mediating cognition and behavior. In unraveling the mysteries of the brain, these researchers encountered an almost infinite number of cellular forms with an extraordinary beauty, which they could not help but put pen to paper, allowing them to discover a new artistic world- the neuronal forest- that gave free rein not only to their imagination, but to a new way of viewing the brain as well. This book has been divided into two parts. The first focuses on the scientific atmosphere in Cajal's times, on the history of the neuron, and the anatomical challenge posed in studying neuronal connections. It also delves into the artistic skills of Cajal and other important pioneers in neuroscience and how the neuronal forests have served as an unlimited source of artistic inspiration. The second consists of 275 original drawings by Cajal. All were published over the course of his scientific career and cover virtually all of his research fields of interest, including the spinal cord, the optic lobe and retina, cerebral cortex, and many other regions of the brain. Cajal's Neuronal Forest: Science and Art is a testament to the natural beauty found in science. Despite the common misconception that the drawings of Cajal and other scientists of the time are pieces of art, these drawings are in fact copies of histological preparations and contributed greatly to the discoveries made in the field of neuroscience. This book is a gem in any library, whether serving as a medical history or a gallery of stunning sketches.