Perceptual Neuroscience: The Cerebral Cortex

Front Cover
Harvard University Press, 1998 - Medical - 486 pages

The cerebral cortex, occupying over 70 percent of our brain mass, is key to any understanding of the workings--and disorders--of the human brain. offering a comprehensive account of the role of the cerebral cortex in perception, this monumental work by one of the world's greatest living neuroscientists does nothing short of creating a new subdiscipline in the field: perceptual neuroscience.

For this undertaking, Vernon Mountcastle has gathered information from a vast number of sources reaching back through two centuries of investigation into the intrinsic operations of the cortex. His survey includes phylogenetic, comparative, and neuroanatomical studies of the neocortex; studies of the large-scale organization of the neocortex, of neuronal histogenesis and the specification of cortical areas, of synaptic transmission between neurons in cortical microcircuits, and of rhythmicity and synchronization in neocortical networks; and inquiries into the binding problem--how activities among the separate processing nodes of distributed systems coalesce in a coherent activity that we call perception.

The first book to summarize what is known about the physiology of the cortex in perception, Perceptual Neuroscience will be a landmark in the literature of neuroscience.

From inside the book

Contents

Perception and the Cerebral Cortex
1
The Phylogenetic Development of the Cerebral Cortex
19
Cells and Local Networks of the Neocortex
50
The Organization of the Neocortex
78
Synaptic Transmission in the Neocortex
103
Storage and Release of Synaptic Transmitters
113
Direct Synaptic Transmission in the Neocortex
119
ActivityDependent Changes in Synaptic Strength in the Hippocampus and Neocortex
137
10
254
Dynamic Operations in Neocortical Networks
284
Modulatory Control of Intrinsic Neocortical
307
The Layer V Hypothesis of Cortical Function
313
Rhythmicity and Synchronization in Neocortical Networks
317
The Human EEG
320
The Thalamus as Neuronal Oscillator and the Generation
328
Spatial Inhomogeneities and the MicroEEG
335

The Columnar Organization of the Neocortex
165
Metabolic and Blood Flow Studies in the First Somatic
175
Physiological Studies of Homotypical Cortical Areas
185
Columniation by Intrinsic Connectivity
192
A Central Core System Projecting to the Cortex without
202
Secondary Events in Cortical Histogenesis and
227
Local Synaptogenesis and the Role of Activity in Refining
233
The Specification of Axonal Projections by Selective Collateral
240
The Rodent Model and the Peripheral Blueprint
249
Temporal Correlation and Perceptual Integration
343
The Relation of Synchronization to Perceptual
356
Epilogue
362
What Have Studies of the Ontogenetic and Secondary
368
Are Microcircuits Uniform throughout the Neocortex?
372
References
383
Illustration Credits
459
Index
465
Copyright

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About the author (1998)

Vernon B. Mountcastle, M.D., was University Professor of Neuroscience, Emeritus, at the Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute of Johns Hopkins University and winner of the 1998 National Academy of Sciences Award in Neurosciences.

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