Cortex and Mind: Unifying Cognition

This book presents a unique synthesis of the current neuroscience of cognition by one of the world's authorities in the field. The guiding principle to this synthesis is the tenet that the entirety of our knowledge is encoded by relations, and thus by connections, in neuronal networks of our cerebral cortex. Cognitive networks develop by experience on a base of widely dispersed modular cell assemblies representing elementary sensations and movements. As they develop cognitive networks organize themselves hierarchically by order of complexity or abstraction of their content. Because networks intersect profusely, sharing commong nodes, a neuronal assembly anywhere in the cortex can be part of many networks, and therefore many items of knowledge. All cognitive functions consist of neural transactions

Joaquin M. Fuster is Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the School of Medicine, Director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory in the Neuropsychiatric Institute, and Member of the Brain Research Institute, at the University of California, Los Angeles.