Brain Function and Oscillations: Volume II: Integrative Brain Function. Neurophysiology and Cognitive Processes (Springer Series in Synergetics)

Neuroscience is ripe for a paradigm change as Freeman and Mountcastle describe.Brain Oscillations provide an important key to this change. In this book the functional importance of the brain's multiple oscillations is treated with an integrative scope. According to the author, neurophysiology and cognition demand integrative approaches similar to those of Galilei and Newton in physics and of Darwin in biology. Not only the human brain but also lower brains and ganglia of invertebrates are treated with electrophysical methods. Experiments on sensory registration, perception, movement, and cognitive processes related to attention, learning, and memory are described. A synopsis on brain functions leads to a newneuron assemblies doctrine, extending the concept of Sherrington, and new trends in this field. The book will appeal to scientists and graduate students.

This book establishes a brain theory based on neural oscillations with a temporal relation to a well-defined event. New findings about oscillations at the cellular level show striking parallels with EEG and MEG measurements. The authors embrace both the level of single neurons and that of the brain as a whole, showing how this approach advances our knowledge about the functional significance of the brain's electrical activity. They are related to sensory and cognitive tasks, leading towards an "integrative neurophysiology". The book will appeal to scientists and graduate students.
This two-volume treatise has the special features that:
- powerful mathematical algorithms are used;
- concepts of synergetics, synchronization of cell assemblies provide a new theory of evoked potentials;
- the EEG frequencies are considered as a type of alphabet of brain function;
- based on the results described, brain oscillations are correlated with multiple functions, including sensory registration, perception, movement and cognitive processes related to attention,learning and memory;
- the superposition principle of event-related oscillations and brain Feynmann diagrams are introduced as metaphors from quantum theory.