The Oxford Handbook Of Social Neuroscience

The complexities of the brain and nervous system make neuroscience an inherently interdisciplinary pursuit, one that comprises disparate basic, clinical, and applied disciplines. Behavioral neuroscientists approach the brain and nervous system as instruments of sensation and response; cognitive neuroscientists view the same systems as a solitary computer with a focus on representations and processes. The Oxford Handbook of Social Neuroscience marks the emergence of a third broad perspective in this field. Social neuroscience emphasizes the functions that emerge through the coaction and interaction of conspecifics, the neural mechanisms that underlie these functions, and the commonality and differences across social species and superorganismal structures. With an emphasis on the neural, hormonal, cellular, and genetic mechanisms underlying social behavior, social neuroscience places emphasis on the associations and influences between social and biological levels of organization. This complex interdisciplinary perspective demands theoretical, methodological, statistical, and inferential rigor to effectively integrate basic, clinical, and applied perspectives on the nervous system and brain. Reflecting the diverse perspectives that make up this field, The Oxford Handbook of Social Neuroscience brings together perspectives from across the sciences in one authoritative volume.

In the last decade, there has been a tremendous surge of research on the mechanisms of human action. This volume brings together this new knowledge in a single, concise source, covering most if not all of the basic questions regarding human action: What are the mechanisms by which action plans are acquired (learned), mentally represented, activated, selected, and expressed? The chapters provide up-to-date summaries of the published research on this question, with an emphasis on underlying mechanisms. This 'bible' of action research brings together the current thinking of eminent researchers in the domains of motor control, behavioral and cognitive neuroscience, psycholinguistics, biology, as well as cognitive, developmental, social, and motivational psychology. It represents a determined multidisciplinary effort, spanning across various areas of science as well as national boundaries.

This handbook provides a comprehensive review of social cognition, ranging from its history and core research areas to its relationships with other fields. The 43 chapters included are written by eminent researchers in the field of social cognition, and are designed to be understandable and informative to readers with a wide range of backgrounds.

A rich source of authoritative information that supports reading and study in the field of cognitive neuroscience, this two-volume handbook reviews the current state-of-the-science in all major areas of the field.

The past two decades have seen unparalleled developments in our knowledge of the brain and mind. However, these advances have forced us to confront head-on some significant ethical issues regarding our application of this information in the real world- whether using brain images to establish guilt within a court of law, or developing drugs to enhance cognition. Historically, any consideration of the ethical, legal, and social implications of emerging technologies in science and medicine has lagged behind the discovery of the technology itself. These delays have caused problems in the acceptability and potential applications of biomedical advances and posed significant problems for the scientific community and the public alike - for example in the case of genetic screening and human cloning. The field of Neuroethics aims to proactively anticipate ethical, legal and social issues at the intersection of neuroscience and ethics, raising questions about what the brain tells us about ourselves, whether the information is what people want or ought to know, and how best to communicate it. A landmark in the academic literature, the Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics presents a pioneering review of a topic central to the sciences and humanities. It presents a range of chapters considering key issues, discussion, and debate at the intersection of brain and ethics. The handbook contains more than 50 chapters by leaders from around the world and a broad range of sectors of academia and clinical practice spanning the neurosciences, medical sciences and humanities and law. The book focuses on and provides a platform for dialogue of what neuroscience can do, what we might expect neuroscience will do, and what neuroscience ought to do. The major themes include: consciousness and intention; responsibility and determinism; mind and body; neurotechnology; ageing and dementia; law and public policy; and science, society and international perspectives. Tackling some of the most significant ethical issues that face us now and will continue to do so over the coming decades, The Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics will be an essential resource for the field of neuroethics for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, basic scientists in the neurosciences and psychology, scholars in humanities and law, as well as physicians practising in the areas of primary care in neurological medicine.

This Handbook examines disparities in public health by highlighting recent theoretical and methodological advances in cultural neuroscience. It traces the interactions of cultural, biological, and environmental factors that create adverse physical and mental health conditions among populations, and investigates how the policies of cultural and governmental institutions influence such outcomes. In addition to providing an overview of the current research, chapters demonstrate how a cultural neuroscience approach to the study of the mind, brain, and behavior can help stabilize the quality of health of societies at large. The volume will appeal especially to graduate students and professional scholars working in psychology and population genetics. The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Neuroscience represents the first collection of scholarly contributions from the International Cultural Neuroscience Consortium (ICNC), an interdisciplinary group of scholars from epidemiology, anthropology, psychology, neuroscience, genetics, and psychiatry dedicated to advancing an understanding of culture and health using theory and methods from cultural neuroscience. The Handbook is intended to introduce future generations of scholars to foundations in cultural neuroscience, and to equip them to address the grand challenges in global mental health in the twenty-first century.

The Oxford Handbook of the Self explores a fascinating diversity of questions about our understanding of self from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, ethics, psychology, neuroscience, psychopathology, narrative, and postmodern theories.