Exploring the Thalamus and Its Role in Cortical Function (Mit Press) - Softcover

Sherman, Maurice Goldblatt Professor And Chairman S Murray; Guillery, R W

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262513447 ISBN 13: 9780262513449

Publisher: MIT Press, 2009

Synopsis

Examines the two-way relationships between the thalamus and the cerebral cortex; with updated material and a new chapter on the link between perception and action.

The thalamus plays a critical role in perceptual processing, but many questions remain about what thalamic activities contribute to sensory and motor functions. In this book, two pioneers in research on the thalamus examine the close two-way relationships between thalamus and cerebral cortex and look at the distinctive functions of the links between the thalamus and the rest of the brain. Countering the dominant "corticocentric" approach to understanding the cerebral cortex―which does not recognize that all neocortical areas receive important inputs from the thalamus and send outputs to lower motor centers―S. Murray Sherman and R.W. Guillery argue for a reappraisal of the way we think about the cortex and its interactions with the rest of the brain.

The book defines some of the functional categories critical to understanding thalamic functions, including the distinctions between drivers (pathways that carry messages to the cortex) and modulators (which can change the pattern of transmission) and between first-order and higher-order thalamic relays―the former receiving ascending drivers and the latter receiving cortical drivers. This second edition further develops these distinctions with expanded emphasis throughout the book on the role of the thalamus in cortical function. An important new chapter suggests a structural basis for linking perception and action, supplying supporting evidence for a link often overlooked in current views of perceptual processing.

About this title

About the Author

S. Murray Sherman is Maurice Goldblatt Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Chicago.

R. W. Guillery is affiliated with the MRC Anatomical Neuropharmacology Unit in Oxford, previously taught in the United States (University of Wisconsin School of Medicine), the United Kingdom (University of Oxford), and Turkey, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Review

It is simply magnificent...All the chapters are excellent.

―Vernon B. Mountcastle

Sherman and Guillery are both pioneers of research on the thalamus. Together they have come up with a work that I consider a paragon of its type. It is factual, informative, well documented, and thought provoking, and will be most useful to students and researchers alike.

―Mike Gutnick, Professor of Neurobiology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

This is a superb work. The first edition was terrific. The second extends it to drive home a deeply fundamental point about the organization of the brain. This book must be read by all serious students of the nervous system.

―Richard H. Masland, Professor of Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School

The thalamus is the gateway to cortical information processing, and the second edition of this book is a magnificent postern to our understanding the way in which it works. In particular, it allows theoretical neuroscience to greatly enhance our insight into cortico-thalamic feedback.

―J. Leo van Hemmen, Department of Physics, Technical University of Munich

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0262513447
• ISBN 13: 9780262513449
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 484