Behavioral and Neural Plasticity (The brain, anatomy and function)

BEHAVIOR, BRAIN, AND THE BIOLOGY OF LEARNING

Behavioral and Neural Plasticity by Michael M. Nikoletseas is a distinctive introduction to learning, memory, and the biological mechanisms through which experience changes behavior and the nervous system.

Developed from university lectures taught over many years, the book approaches learning not as a catalogue of psychological experiments but as a biological, philosophical, and epistemological problem. Its intellectual lineage extends from Pavlov, Thorndike, Skinner, and the classical experimental tradition to neurophysiology and molecular neuroscience.

FROM BEHAVIOR TO NEURAL MECHANISM

Beginning with the historical and philosophical foundations of behavioral science, Nikoletseas examines:

• habituation and sensitization
• Pavlovian conditioning
• operant conditioning
• excitation and inhibition
• reinforcement and stimulus control
• ethology, instinct, and imprinting
• synaptic and molecular mechanisms of plasticity

Behavioral phenomena are repeatedly followed through different levels of analysis—from observable response to neuronal circuitry, synaptic transmission, electrophysiology, and molecular mechanism.

A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS

A central argument runs throughout the book: the concepts used to describe behavior must not be confused with the mechanisms that produce it.

Terms such as association, learning, reinforcement, attention, and memory are therefore subjected to critical examination. The reader is encouraged to move beyond verbal explanation toward experimentally grounded biological processes such as inhibition, excitation, synaptic depression, facilitation, and activity-dependent plasticity.

Particular attention is given to Pavlovian conditioning and to the cellular mechanisms revealed through research on simple nervous systems, including the molecular study of learning and memory associated with the work of Eric Kandel.

SCIENCE, HISTORY, AND EPISTEMOLOGY

Nikoletseas writes from within the experimental tradition while remaining sharply critical of it. Pavlov, Skinner, Rescorla, Kamin, Lorenz, Tinbergen, Kandel, Bridgman, Mach, and others become part of a broader inquiry into how scientific knowledge of behavior is constructed.

The book challenges aspects of behaviorism, cognitive explanation, operationalism, statistical orthodoxy, and the tendency to turn descriptive psychological concepts into explanations.

Experimental diagrams, conceptual models, historical examples, and vivid real-life cases make difficult ideas concrete while preserving the rigor of the underlying scientific questions.

FOR READERS OF

• psychology
• neuroscience
• biology
• learning and memory
• comparative behavior
• philosophy and history of science

More than a textbook on learning, Behavioral and Neural Plasticity is an argument for a natural science of behavior—one in which behavior, brain, and molecular mechanism form a continuous field of explanation.

2026 CORRECTED PRINTING

This printing preserves the content, arguments, examples, scientific positions, and authorial voice of the original 2010 edition. Editorial changes have been limited to the correction of typographical, spelling, grammatical, internal-consistency, and bibliographic errors. No substantive revision of the original text has been made.

Dr. Michael Nikoletseas did his undergraduate, graduate and post graduate work in USA universities and medical schools (Rutgers University, Medical College of Pennsylvania, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, visiting professor at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston). He has taught medical Anatomy in several US medical schools including the School of Medicine of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His research in neurophysiology and neuroanatomy has been published in international journals. He is also the author of books in Medicine and bio Statistics. Parents: Johannes Peter Müller (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) -> Hermann von Helmholtz (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) -> Wilhelm Max Wundt (Universität Leipzig) -> Edward B. Titchener (Cornell University) -> John Paul Nafe-> Clarence Graham (Columbia University) -> William S. Verplank, Jr. (Indiana University Bloomington)-> George H. Collier (Rutgers University) -> Michael M. Nikoletseas.