Neural Models of Plasticity: Experimental and Theoretical Approaches

Neural Models of Plasticity is an outgrowth of a conference that was held at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in the spring of 1987. The purpose of that conference was to review recent developments in both theoretical and empirical approaches and foster communication between those researchers pursuing theoretical approaches and those pursuing more empirical approaches. This volume aims to serve a similar purpose.
This volume comprises 19 chapters and begins with a discussion of the relationship between associative learning, memory, and neuromodulation in Hermissenda. The next chapters then proceed to discuss developmental assembly of multiple components of learning and memory, associative and nonassociative learning, and some molecular mechanisms underlying long-term sensitization in Aplysia; and classical conditioning and the drive-reinforcement model of neuronal function. Other chapters cover the Hebb rule for synaptic plasticity; olfactory processing and associative memory; the eyelid closure response; depression; the Sutton-Barto-Desmond model; memory and the hippocampus; neuronal networks; and the hippocampal brain slice. The roles of norepinephrine; functions of simple cortical networks suggested by computer modeling; sequence recognition; local synaptic and electrical interactions in hippocampus; and models of calcium regulation in neurons are also discussed.
This book will be of interest to practitioners in the fields of psychology, cellular neurophysiology, neurobiology, physiology, and anatomy.