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Overview
The human brain is often described as the most complex object in the universe. Tens of billions of nerve cells-tiny tree-like structures—make up a massive network with enormous computational power. In this book, Giorgio Ascoli reveals another aspect of the human brain: the stunning beauty of its cellular form. Doing so, he makes a provocative claim about the mind-brain relationship.
If each nerve cell enlarged a thousandfold looks like a tree, then a small region of the nervous system at the same magnified scale resembles a gigantic, fantastic forest. This structural majesty—illustrated throughout the book with extraordinary color images—hides the secrets behind the genesis of our mental states. Ascoli proposes that some of the most intriguing mysteries of the mind can be solved using the basic architectural principles of the brain. After an overview of the scientific and philosophical foundations of his argument, Ascoli links mental states with patterns of electrical activity in nerve cells, presents an emerging minority opinion of how the brain learns from experience, and unveils a radically new hypothesis of the mechanism determining what is learned, what isn't, and why. Finally, considering these notions in the context of the cosmic diversity within and among brains, Ascoli offers a new perspective on the roots of individuality and humanity.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780262329033 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | MIT Press |
| Publication date: | 04/24/2015 |
| Series: | The MIT Press |
| Sold by: | Penguin Random House Publisher Services |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 248 |
| File size: | 5 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Preface vii
List of Figures xiii
Part I Cognitive Philosophy and Neuroscience Basics 1
1 Reality, the World, the Brain, and the Mind 3
1.1 What Is? Materialism, Idealism, and Dualism 3
1.2 The Brain, an Organ of Many 6
1.3 Cells of the Nervous System 9
1.4 The Conscious Mind 12
2 Neuron Trees and Network Forests 17
2.1 Neurons Connect into Networks with Tree-like Processes 17
2.2 The Roots of the Mind: Scales, Branches, Classes 20
2.3 Connecting the Dots: Synapses and Their Strength 24
2.4 Mind-Boggling Numbers of the Brain 27
3 Transmitting and Processing Information 33
3.1 The Axon: Signal Transmission 33
3.2 The Dendrites: Signal Integration 38
3.3 The Adaptive Neuron: Plasticity of the Input/Output Relation 43
3.4 The Mighty Cable of the Axon 49
Part II Dynamics of the Brain-Mind Relationship 57
4 Activity Patterns and Mental States 59
4.1 The first Principle of the Brain-Mind Relationship 59
4.2 We Experience Only a Minute Fraction of Our Possible Mental States 63
4.3 Knowledge Is Encoded in the Synaptic Connectivity of the Network 66
4.4 A Far-from-Complete Engram 71
5 Learning from Experience 77
5.1 The Second Principle of the Brain-Mind Relationship 77
5.2 Probability versus Capability of Experiencing a Mental State 81
5.3 Panta Rhei 85
5.4 To Learn or Not to Learn 91
6 The Capability of Acquiring New Knowledge 95
6.1 The Third Principle of the Brain-Mind Relationship 95
6.2 Learning Is Gated by Background Information 101
6.3 Learning the Truth 108
6.4 Arbor Plasticity and Learning: Spatial and Temporal Scales 114
Part III A Bucolic View of the Universe 123
7 Neurobotanical Gardens 125
7.1 Worms, Flies, and the Rest of Us 125
7.2 Arbors for All Seasons 132
7.3 Geographieal Diversity and Physique du Role 137
7.4 Protagonists and Supporters 144
8 Neuron Types 153
8.1 All Neurons Are Different, but Some More Than Others 153
8.2 There's More Than Meets the Eye 161
8.3 Location, Location, Location! 165
8.4 A Multitude of Multitudes 171
9 Brain Branching and the Universe 181
9.1 The Liquid Jungle 181
9.2 The Uniqueness of the Individual 187
9.3 Brain Scans and Super-duper Microscopes 192
9.4 Neutofuturism: The Code Is the Beginning, Not the End 201
Epilogue 209
Notes 213
Index 229
What People are Saying About This
Branching from the tradition of William Calvin, Gerald Edelman, and Donald Hebb, Dr. Ascoli builds up a charmingly arboreal view of the brain as a self-aware forest emerging from selectively overlapping trees. His elegant and provocative mechanism for what can be learned and what cannot will engage and challenge neuroscientists while being comfortably intelligible to any reader.
Branching patterns in nature have long fascinated scientists. In this captivating book, Giorgio Ascoli compares the rich variations of the dendritic trees of neurons to the complex branch organization in trees. The comparison is not only metaphorical—the author eloquently describes that branching is also both needed and useful. The book is a journey through the canopy of the brain jungle, guided by an expert who can see the forest for the trees.
—György Buzsáki, Biggs Professor of Neural Sciences, NYU Neuroscience Institute
This wide-ranging book combines a thorough exploration of the cellular organization of the brain with a deeply theoretical perspective on how anatomy and physiology together enable the emergence of complex mental states. Skillfully woven together, the result is a unique picture of the brain that is rooted in cellular anatomy and morphology and then set in motion by the dynamics of circuits and networks: an appealing synthesis by one of the leading thinkers in modern neuroscience.
—Olaf Sporns, Distinguished Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University; author of Networks of the Brain and Discovering the Human ConnectomeBranching from the tradition of William Calvin, Gerald Edelman, and Donald Hebb, Dr. Ascoli builds up a charmingly arboreal view of the brain as a self-aware forest emerging from selectively overlapping trees. His elegant and provocative mechanism for what can be learned and what cannot will engage and challenge neuroscientists while being comfortably intelligible to any reader.
—Daniel Gardner, Professor of Physiology and Biophysics and Head of the Laboratory of Neuroinformatics, Weill Cornell Medical College; editor of The Neurobiology of Neural NetworksBranching patterns in nature have long fascinated scientists. In this captivating book, Giorgio Ascoli compares the rich variations of the dendritic trees of neurons to the complex branch organization in trees. The comparison is not only metaphorical—the author eloquently describes that branching is also both needed and useful. The book is a journey through the canopy of the brain jungle, guided by an expert who can see the forest for the trees.
—György Buzsáki, Biggs Professor of Neural Sciences, NYU Neuroscience InstituteThis wide-ranging book combines a thorough exploration of the cellular organization of the brain with a deeply theoretical perspective on how anatomy and physiology together enable the emergence of complex mental states. Skillfully woven together, the result is a unique picture of the brain that is rooted in cellular anatomy and morphology and then set in motion by the dynamics of circuits and networks: an appealing synthesis by one of the leading thinkers in modern neuroscience.