An extensively revised third edition of this introduction to neuroethology - the neuronal basis of animal behaviour - for zoology, biology and psychology undergraduate students. The book focuses on the roles of individual nerve cells in behaviour, from simple startle responses to complex behaviours such as route learning by rats and singing by crickets and birds. It begins by examining the relationship between brains and behaviour, and showing how study of specialised behaviours reveals ne...

Everybody needs to know something about their brain. But who wants to wade through a tedious textbook that tells you far more than you want to know? This Core Ideas of Neuroscience also probably tells you more than you want to know too. But it does not cost anywhere near the $100 or more you would spend for a traditional text. Moreover, my book is organized as modules explaining the basic principles of 75 core ideas. You don't have to wade through it. You can dance through it, easily getti...

Some of the most time-honored questions in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience center on the uniqueness of the human mind. How do we think? What makes us so different from all the other animals on planet Earth? What was the process that created the human mind? Is this process unique or can it be repeated on other planets? The book "On the Origin of the Human Mind" attempts to provide an answer to these questions. It is organized into three chapters: Chapter I "Uniqueness of the Human ...

How does the brain work? How different is a human brain from other creatures' brains? Is the human brain still evolving? In this fascinating book, Michael O'Shea provides a non-technical introduction to the main issues and findings in current brain research, and gives a sense of how neuroscience addresses questions about the relationship between the brain and the mind. Chapters tackle subjects such as brain processes, perception, memory, motor control and the causes of 'altered mental stat...

Throughout their lives animals must complete many tasks, including finding food, avoiding predators, attracting mates, and navigating through a complex and dynamic environment. Consequently, they have evolved a staggering array of sensory organs that are fundamental to survival and reproduction and shape much of their evolution and behaviour. Sensory ecology deals with how animals acquire, process, and use information in their lives, and the sensory systems involved. It investigates the ty...

From simple reflexes to complex choreographies of movement, all animal behavior is governed by a nervous system. But what kind of government is it—a dictatorship or a democracy?Nervous systems consist of circuits of interconnected nerve cells (neurons) that transmit and receive information via electrical signals. Every moment, each neuron adds up stimulating and inhibiting inputs from many other neurons to determine whether to send an electrical signal to its recipients. Some circu...

The fourth edition of Fundamental Neuroscience reinvents itself as an engrossing and comprehensive presentation of the discipline of neuroscience, from molecules to cognition. Thorough but succinct, and lavishly illustrated, the book builds from an introductory section that includes fundamental neuroanatomy and goes on to cover cellular and molecular neuroscience, development, sensory systems, motor systems, regulatory systems, and behavioral and cognitive neuroscience. The book has been r...

The Routledge Handbook of Motor Control and Motor Learning is the first book to offer a comprehensive survey of neurophysiological, behavioural and biomechanical aspects of motor function. Adopting an integrative approach, it examines the full range of key topics in contemporary human movement studies, explaining motor behaviour in depth from the molecular level to behavioural consequences.The book contains contributions from many of the world´s leading experts in motor co...

How consciousness appeared much earlier in evolutionary history than is commonly assumed, and why all vertebrates and perhaps even some invertebrates are conscious.How is consciousness created? When did it first appear on Earth, and how did it evolve? What constitutes consciousness, and which animals can be said to be sentient? In this book, Todd Feinberg and Jon Mallatt draw on recent scientific findings to answer these questions—and to tackle the most fundamental...

Development of the Nervous System presents a broad and basic treatment of the established and evolving principles of neural development as exemplified by key experiments and observations from past and recent times. The text is organized ontogenically. It begins with the emergence of the neural primordium and takes a chapter-by-chapter approach in succeeding events in neural development: patterning and growth of the nervous system, neuronal determination, axonal navigation and targeting, ne...

This book presents the human hand from an overall perspective – from the first appearance of hand-like structures in the fins of big fishes living millions of years ago to today´s and the future’s mind-controlled artificial hands.Much focus is given to the extremely well-developed sensation of the hand, its importance and its linkage to brain plasticity mechanisms. How can active hands rapidly expand their representational area in the brain? How can the sense of touch substitute fo...

Horses were first domesticated about 6,000 years ago on the vast Eurasian steppe extending from Mongolia to the Carpathian Mountains. Yet only in the last two decades have scientists begun to explore the specific mental capacities of these animals. Responding to a surge of interest in fields from ethology to comparative psychology and evolutionary biology, Michel-Antoine Leblanc presents an encyclopedic synthesis of scientific knowledge about equine behavior and cognition. The Mind of ...