Information about neuroscience

Neuroscience is a field that is devoted to the scientific study of the nervous system. Such studies may include the structure, function, evolutionary history, development, genetics, biochemistry, physiology, pharmacology, and pathology of the nervous system. Traditionally it is seen as a branch of biological sciences. However, recently there has been a surge in the convergence of interest from many allied disciplines, including cognitive- and neuro-psychology, computer science, statistics, physics, and medicine. The scope of neuroscience has now broadened to include any systematic scientific experimental and theoretical investigation of the central and peripheral nervous system of biological organisms. The methodologies employed by neuroscientists have been enormously expanded, from biochemical and genetic analysis of dynamics of individual nerve cells and their molecular constituents to imaging representations of perceptual and motor tasks in the brain.

Neuroscience is at the frontier of investigation of the brain and mind. The study of the brain is becoming the cornerstone in understanding how we perceive and interact with the external world and, in particular, how human experience and human biology influence each other. In 1973, Amherst College became the first institution of higher education to offer an undergraduate major in neuroscience.

Drawing of the cells in the chicken cerebellum by S. Ramón y Cajal

Overview

The scientific study of the nervous systems underwent a significant increase in the second half of the twentieth century, principally due to revolutions in molecular biology, neural networks and computational neuroscience. It has become possible to understand, in exquisite detail, the complex processes occurring inside a single neuron and in a network that eventually produces the intellectual behavior, cognition, emotion and physiological responses.

stained neuron

The task of neural science is to explain behavior in terms of the activities of the brain. How does the brain marshal its millions of individual nerve cells to produce behavior, and how are these cells influenced by the environment...? The last frontier of the biological sciences--their ultimate challenge--is to understand the biological basis of consciousness and the mental processes by which we perceive, act, learn, and remember. — Eric Kandel, Principles of Neural science, fourth edition

The nervous system is composed of a network of neurons and other supportive cells (such as glial cells). Neurons form functional circuits, each responsible for specific tasks to the behaviors at the organism level. Thus, neuroscience can be studied at many different levels, ranging from molecular level to cellular level to systems level to cognitive level.

At the molecular level, the basic questions addressed in molecular neuroscience include the mechanisms by which neurons express and respond to molecular signals and how axons form complex connectivity patterns. At this level, tools from molecular biology and genetics are used to understand how neurons develop and die, and how genetic changes affect biological functions. The morphology, molecular identity and physiological characteristics of neurons and how they relate to different types of behavior are also of considerable interest. (The ways in which neurons and their connections are modified by experience are addressed at the physiological and cognitive levels.)

At the cellular level, the fundamental questions addressed in cellular neuroscience are the mechanisms of how neurons process signals physiologically and electrochemically. They address how signals are processed by the dendrites, somas and axons, and how neurotransmitters and electrical signals are used to process signals in a neuron.

At the systems level, the questions addressed in systems neuroscience include how the circuits are formed and used anatomically and physiologically to produce the physiological functions, such as reflexes, sensory integration, motor coordination, emotional responses, learning and memory, et cetera. In other words, they address how these neural circuits function and the mechanisms through which behaviors are generated. For example, systems level analysis addresses questions concerning specific sensory and motor modalities: how does vision work? How do songbirds learn new songs and bats localize with ultrasound? The related field of neuroethology, in particular, addresses the complex question of how neural substrates underlies specific animal behavior.

Animation of a stack of horizontal MRI sections of a normal adult human brain

At the cognitive level, cognitive neuroscience addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by the neural circuitry. The emergence of powerful new measurement techniques such as neuroimaging (e.g.,fMRI, PET, SPECT), electrophysiology and human genetic analysis combined with sophisticated experimental techniques from cognitive psychology allows neuroscientists and psychologists to address abstract questions such as how human cognition and emotion are mapped to specific neural circuitries.

Neuroscience is also beginning to become allied with social sciences, and burgeoning interdisciplinary fields of neuroeconomics, decision theory, social neuroscience are starting to address some of the most complex questions involving interactions of brain with environment.

Neuroscience generally includes all scientific studies involving the nervous system. Psychology, as the scientific study of mental processes, may be considered a sub-field of neuroscience, although some mind/body theorists argue that the definition goes the other way — that psychology is a study of mental processes that can be modeled by many other abstract principles and theories, such as behaviorism and traditional cognitive psychology, that are independent of the underlying neural processes. The term neurobiology is sometimes used interchangeably with neuroscience, though the former refers to the biology of nervous system, whereas the latter refers to science of mental functions that form the foundation of the constituent neural circuitries. In Principles of Neural Science, nobel laureate Eric Kandel contends that cognitive psychology is one of the pillar disciplines for understanding the brain in neuroscience.

Neurology and Psychiatry are medical specialties and are generally considered, in academic research, subfields of neuroscience that specifically address the diseases of the nervous system. These terms also refer to clinical disciplines involving diagnosis and treatment of these diseases. Neurology deals with diseases of the central and peripheral nervous systems such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and stroke, while psychiatry focuses on mental illnesses. The boundaries between the two have been blurring recently and physicians who specialize in either generally receive training in both. Both neurology and psychiatry are heavily involved in and influenced by basic research in neuroscience.

History of Neuroscience

Main article: History of the brain

Evidence of trepanation, the surgical practice of either drilling or scraping a hole into the skull with the aim of curing headaches or mental disorders or relieving cranial pressure, being performed on patients dates back to Neolithic times and has been found in various cultures throughout the world. Manuscripts dating back to 5000BC indicated that the Egyptians had some knowledge about symptoms of brain damage.

Early views on the function of the brain regarded it to be a "cranial stuffing" of sorts. In Egypt, from the late Middle Kingdom onwards, the brain was regularly removed in preparation for mummification. It was believed at the time that the heart was the seat of intelligence. According to Herodotus, during the first step of mummification: 'The most perfect practice is to extract as much of the brain as possible with an iron hook, and what the hook cannot reach is mixed with drugs.'

The view that the heart was the source of consciousness was not challenged until the time of Hippocrates. He believed that the brain was not only involved with sensation, since most specialized organs (e.g., eyes, ears, tongue) are located in the head near the brain, but was also the seat of intelligence. Aristotle, however, believed that the heart was the center of intelligence and that the brain served to cool the blood. This view was generally accepted until the Roman physician Galen, a follower of Hippocrates and physician to Roman gladiators, observed that his patients lost their mental faculties when they had sustained damage to their brains.

In Al-Andalus, Abulcasis, the father of modern surgery, developed material and technical designs which are still used in neurosurgery. Averroes suggested the existence of Parkinson's disease and attributed photoreceptor properties to the retina. Avenzoar described meningitis, intracranial thrombophlebitis, mediastinal tumours and made contributions to modern neuropharmacology. Maimonides wrote about neuropsychiatric disorders and described rabies and belladonna intoxication.^[1]

Studies of the brain became more sophisticated after the invention of the microscope and the development of a staining procedure by Camillo Golgi during the late 1890s that used a silver chromate salt to reveal the intricate structures of single neurons. His technique was used by Santiago Ramón y Cajal and led to the formation of the neuron doctrine, the hypothesis that the functional unit of the brain is the neuron. Golgi and Ramón y Cajal shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 for their extensive observations, descriptions and categorizations of neurons throughout the brain. The hypotheses of the neuron doctrine were supported by experiments following Galvani's pioneering work in the electrical excitability of muscles and neurons. In the late 19th century, DuBois-Reymond, Müller, and von Helmholtz showed neurons were electrically excitable and that their activity predictably affected the electrical state of adjacent neurons.

In parallel with this research, work with brain-damaged patients by Paul Broca suggested that certain regions of the brain were responsible for certain functions. This hypothesis was supported by observations of epileptic patients conducted by John Hughlings Jackson, who correctly deduced the organization of motor cortex by watching the progression of seizures through the body. Wernicke further developed the theory of the specialization of specific brain structures in language comprehension and production. Modern research still uses the Brodmann cytoarchitectonic (referring to study of cell structure) anatomical definitions from this era in continuing to show that distinct areas of the cortex are activated in the execution of specific tasks.

ref: Principles of Neural Science, 4th ed. Eric R. Kandel, James H. Schwartz, Thomas M. Jessel, eds. McGraw-Hill:New York, NY. 2000.

Andrea Vesalius (1514-1564) René Descartes (1596-1650)

Major Branches of Neuroscience

Current neuroscience research activities can be very roughly categorized into the following major branches, based on the subject and scale of the system in examination as well as distinct experimental approaches. Individual neuroscientists, however, often work on questions that span several distinct subfields.

Branch	Major Topics and Concepts	Experimental and Theoretical Methods
Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience	behavioral genetics, neurocytology, glia, protein trafficking, ion channel, synapse, action potential, neurotransmitters, neuroimmunology	PCR, immunohistochemistry, patch clamp, voltage clamp, molecular cloning, gene knockout, biochemical assays, linkage analysis, fluorescent in situ hybridization, Southern blots, DNA microarray, green fluorescent protein, calcium imaging, two-photon microscopy, HPLC, microdialysis
Behavioral Neuroscience	biological psychology, circadian rhythms, neuroendocrinology, hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, neurotransmitters, homeostasis, dimorphic sexual-behavior, motor control, sensory processing, photo reception, organizational/activational effects of hormones, drug/alcohol effects	animal models (gene knockout), in situ hybridization, golgi stain, fMRI, immunohistochemistry, functional genomics, PET, pattern recognition, EEG, MEG
Systems Neuroscience	primary visual cortex, perception, audition, sensory integration, population coding, pain, spontaneous and evoked activity, color vision, olfaction, taste, motor system, spinal cord, sleep, homeostasis, arousal, attention	single unit recording, intrinsic signal imaging, microstimulation, voltage sensitive dyes, fMRI, patch clamp, genomics, training awake behaving animals, local field potential, ROC, cortical cooling, calcium imaging, two-photon microscopy
Developmental Neuroscience	axon guidance, neural crest, growth factors, growth cone, neuromuscular junction, cell proliferation, neuronal differentiation, cell survival and apoptosis, synaptic formation, motor differentiation, injury and regeneration	Xenopus oocyte, protein chemistry, genomics, Drosophila, Hox gene
Cognitive Neuroscience	attention, cognitive control, behavioral genetics, decision making, emotion, language, memory, motivation, motor learning, perception, sexual behavior, social neuroscience	experimental designs from cognitive psychology, psychometrics, EEG, MEG, fMRI, PET, SPECT, single unit recording, human genetics
Computational and Theoretical Neuroscience	cable theory, Hodgkin-Huxley model, neural networks, voltage-gated currents, Hebbian learning	Markov chain Monte Carlo, simulated annealing, high performance computing, partial differential equations, self-organizing nets, pattern recognition, swarm intelligence
Neuroscience of Diseases and Aging	dementia, peripheral neuropathy, spinal cord injury, autonomic nervous system, depression, anxiety, Parkinson's disease, addiction, memory loss	clinical trials, neuropharmacology, deep brain stimulation, neurosurgery
Neural engineering	Neuroprosthetic, brain-computer interface
Neurolinguistics	language, Broca's area, generative grammar, language acquisition, syntax

Major Themes of Research

Neuroscience research from different areas can also be seen as focusing on a set of specific themes and questions. (Some of these are taken from [1]

Behavior/Cognition/Language
Biological Rhythms
Brain Imaging or neuroimaging
Cell Biology
Cell Imaging & Electrophysiology
Computational neuroscience
Development
Hearing Sciences
language
Learning/Memory
Mechanisms of Drug Action
Molecular Neuroscience
Motor Control

Neurobiology of Disease
Neuroendocrinology
Neuroimmunology
Signal transduction
Systems Neuroscience
Universal Grammar
Vision Sciences
Neurobiology of the neuron
Sensation and perception
Sleep
Autonomic systems and homeostasis
Arousal, attention and emotion
Genetics of the nervous system
Injury of the nervous systems

Allied and Overlapping Fields

Neuroscience, by its very interdiciplinary nature, overlaps with and encompasses many different subjects. Below is a list of related subjects and fields.

Future directions

Main article: Unsolved problems in neuroscience

References

Citations

1. ^ Martin-Araguz, A.; Bustamante-Martinez, C.; Fernandez-Armayor, Ajo V.; Moreno-Martinez, J. M. (2002). "Neuroscience in al-Andalus and its influence on medieval scholastic medicine", Revista de neurología 34 (9), p. 877-892.

Textbooks

Bear, M.F.; B.W. Connors, and M.A. Paradiso (2001). Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain. Baltimore: Lippincott. ISBN 0-7817-3944-6.
Kandel, ER; Schwartz JH, Jessell TM (2000). Principles of Neural Science, 4th ed., New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-8385-7701-6.
Squire, L. et al. (2003). Fundamental Neuroscience, 2nd edition. Academic Press; ISBN 0-12-660303-0
Byrne and Roberts (2004). From Molecules to Networks. Academic Press; ISBN 0-12-148660-5
Sanes, Reh, Harris (2005). Development of the Nervous System, 2nd edition. Academic Press; ISBN 0-12-618621-9
Siegel et al. (2005). Basic Neurochemistry, 7th edition. Academic Press; ISBN 0-12-088397-X
Rieke, F. et al. (1999). Spikes: Exploring the Neural Code. The MIT Press; Reprint edition ISBN 0-262-68108-0

Online textbooks

Neuroscience 2nd ed. Dale Purves, George J. Augustine, David Fitzpatrick, Lawrence C. Katz, Anthony-Samuel LaMantia, James O. McNamara, S. Mark Williams. Published by Sinauer Associates, Inc., 2001.
Basic Neurochemistry: Molecular, Cellular, and Medical Aspects 6th ed. by George J. Siegel, Bernard W. Agranoff, R. Wayne Albers, Stephen K. Fisher, Michael D. Uhler, editors. Published by Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, 1999.

Popular works

Andreasen, Nancy C. (March 4 2004). Brave New Brain: Conquering Mental Illness in the Era of the Genome. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195145090.
Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York, Avon Books. ISBN 0-399-13894-3 (Hardcover) ISBN 0-380-72647-5 (Paperback)
Gardner, H. (1976). The Shattered Mind: The Person After Brain Damage. New York, Vintage Books, 1976 ISBN 0-394-71946-8
Goldstein, K. (2000). The Organism. New York, Zone Books. ISBN 0-942299-96-5 (Hardcover) ISBN 0-942299-97-3 (Paperback)
Llinas R. (2001). I of the Vortex: From Neurons to Self MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-12233-2 (Hardcover) ISBN 0-262-62163-0 (Paperback)
Luria, A. R. (1997). The Man with a Shattered World: The History of a Brain Wound. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-224-00792-0 (Hardcover) ISBN 0-674-54625-3 (Paperback)
Luria, A. R. (1998). The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book About A Vast Memory. New York, Basic Books, Inc. ISBN 0-674-57622-5
Pinker, S. (1999). How the Mind Works. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31848-6
Pinker, S. (2002). The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. Viking Adult. ISBN 0-670-03151-8
Ramachandran, V.S. (1998). Phantoms in the Brain. New York, New York Harper Collins. ISBN 0-688-15247-3 (Paperback)
Rose, S. (2006). 21st Century Brain: Explaining, Mending & Manipulating the Mind ISBN 0099429772 (Paperback)
Sacks, O. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Summit Books ISBN 0-671-55471-9 (Hardcover) ISBN 0-06-097079-0 (Paperback)
Sacks, O. (1990). Awakenings. New York, Vintage Books. (See also Oliver Sacks) ISBN 0-671-64834-9 (Hardcover) ISBN 0-06-097368-4 (Paperback)
Sternberg, E. (2007) Are You a Machine? The Brain, the Mind and What it Means to be Human. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Notes From Online Courses

Intro to Neuroscience - Smith College Spring 2005

Neuroscience subfields:
Behavioral Neurology \| Biological Psychology \| Cognitive Neuroscience \| Cognitive Psychophysiology \| Computational Neuroscience \| Molecular Cellular Cognition \| Neural Engineering \| Neuroanatomy \| Neurobiology \| Neurochemistry \| Neuroendocrinology \| Neuroimaging \| Neurolinguistics \| Neurology \| Neuromonitoring \| Neuropharmacology \| Neurophysiology \| Neuropsychology \| Neuropsychiatry \| Neurosurgery \| Psychiatry \| Psychobiology \| Psychopharmacology \| Psychophysiology \| Systems Neuroscience
Psychology subfields:
Behavioral Neurology \| Cognitive Psychology \| Cognitive Neuroscience \| Biological Psychology \| Neuroimaging \| Psycholinguistics \| Psychophysics \| Psychophysiology \| Neuropsychology \| Neuropsychiatry \| Psychopharmacology \| Systems Neuroscience \| Mathematical Psychology \| Developmental Psychology \| Social Psychology \| Clinical Psychology \| Evolutionary Psychology \| Forensic Psychology

Neuroanatomy is the branch of anatomy that studies the anatomical organization of the nervous system. In vertebrate animals, the routes that the myriad nerves take from the brain to the rest of the body (or "periphery"), and the internal structure of the brain in particular, are
..... Click the link for more information.

biological psychology or psychobiology^[1] is the application of the principles of biology to the study of mental processes and behavior. A psychobiologist, for instance, may compare the imprinting behavior in goslings to the early attachment behavior in human
..... Click the link for more information.

Evolutionary neuroscience is an emerging field of scientific research premised on the hypothesis that the principles of evolution will help elucidate the adaptational difference between humans and animals in aspects of neurological structure and capacity.
..... Click the link for more information.

The study of neural development draws on both neuroscience and developmental biology to describe the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which complex nervous systems emerge during embryonic development and throughout life.
..... Click the link for more information.

Genetics is the science of heredity and variation in living organisms.^[1]^[2] Knowledge of the inheritance of characteristics has been implicitly used since prehistoric times for improving crop plants and animals through selective breeding.
..... Click the link for more information.

Biochemistry is the study of the chemical processes in living organisms.^[1] The word "biochemistry" comes from the Greek word βιοχημεία biochēmeia, which means "the chemistry of life.
..... Click the link for more information.

Physiology (from Greek: φυσις, physis, “nature, origin”; and λόγος, logos, "knowledge") is the study of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of living organisms.
..... Click the link for more information.

Pharmacology is the study of how drugs interact with living organisms to produce a change in function.^[1] If substances have medicinal properties, they are considered pharmaceuticals.
..... Click the link for more information.

Pathologist redirects here. For other uses of the terms pathology or pathological, see pathology (disambiguation).

Pathology is the study and diagnosis of disease through examination of organs, tissues, cells and bodily fluids.
..... Click the link for more information.

nervous system of an animal coordinates the activity of the muscles, monitors the organs, constructs and also stops input from the senses, and initiates actions. Prominent parts of a nervous system include neurons and nerves, which are used in coordination.
..... Click the link for more information.

Biology (from Greek: βίος, bio, "life"; and λόγος, logos, "knowledge"), also referred to as the biological sciences, is the scientific study of life.
..... Click the link for more information.

Cognitive psychology is the school of psychology that examines internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language. It had its foundations in the Gestalt psychology of Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka, and in the work of Jean Piaget, who studied
..... Click the link for more information.

Neuropsychology is an interdisciplinary branch of psychology and neuroscience that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relate to specific psychological processes and overt behaviors.
..... Click the link for more information.

Computer science, or computing science, is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems.
..... Click the link for more information.

Statistics is a mathematical science pertaining to the collection, analysis, interpretation or explanation, and presentation of data. It is applicable to a wide variety of academic disciplines, from the physical and social sciences to the humanities.
..... Click the link for more information.

Physics is the science of matter^[1] and its motion^[2]^[3], as well as space and time^[4]^[5] —the science that deals with concepts such as force, energy, mass, and charge.
..... Click the link for more information.

Medicine is the science and "" of maintaining and/or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of patients. The term is derived from the Latin ars medicina meaning the art of healing.
..... Click the link for more information.

A neuroscientist is an individual who studies the scientific field of neuroscience or any of its related sub-fields. Neuroscience as a distinct discipline separate from anatomy, neurology, physiology, psychology, or psychiatry is fairly recent, aided in large part by the advent of
..... Click the link for more information.

Neurons (also known as neurones and nerve cells) are electrically excitable cells in the nervous system that process and transmit information. In vertebrate animals, neurons are the core components of the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves.
..... Click the link for more information.

Brain mapping is a set of neuroscience techniques predicated on the mapping of (biological) quantities or properties onto spatial representations of the (human or non-human) brain resulting in maps. All neuroimaging can be considered part of brain mapping.
..... Click the link for more information.

Amherst College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, USA. It is the third oldest college in Massachusetts. It has been coeducational since 1975. Amherst College is also part of the Pioneer Valley's Five Colleges, along with Mount Holyoke College, Smith
..... Click the link for more information.

Scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It is based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning,^[1]
..... Click the link for more information.

Molecular biology is the study of biology at a molecular level. The field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry. Molecular biology chiefly concerns itself with understanding the interactions between the various systems of a cell,
..... Click the link for more information.

Traditionally, the term neural network had been used to refer to a network or circuitry of biological neurons. The modern usage of the term often refers to artificial neural networks, which are composed of artificial neurons or nodes.
..... Click the link for more information.

Computational neuroscience is an interdisciplinary science that links the diverse fields of neuroscience, cognitive science, electrical engineering, computer science, physics and mathematics. Historically, the term was introduced by Eric L.
..... Click the link for more information.

Eric Richard Kandel (born November 7, 1929) is a psychiatrist, a neuroscientist and professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
..... Click the link for more information.

Glial cells, commonly called neuroglia or simply glia (greek for "glue"), are non-neuronal cells that provide support and nutrition, maintain homeostasis, form myelin, and participate in signal transmission in the nervous system.
..... Click the link for more information.