Synergetics may be considered as an interdisciplinary effort dealing with the gene ral problem of how science can cope with complex systems. The preceding symposia on synergetics were devoted to systems of physics, chemistry and partly also biolo gy and sociology. It was possible to develop adequate concepts to describe and even to calculate evolving macroscopic spatial, temporal, and functional structures which emerge through self-organization of the individual parts of the systems under con sideration. This book contains the invited papers presented at the Symposium on the Synerge tics of the brain, Schloss Elmau, Bavaria, May 2 to 7, 1983. The inclusion of this topic in the synergetics enterprise represents a big step towards a treatment of complex systems. Most probably the human brain is the most complex system we know of. As the organizers believe, this symposium provides the reader with a good cross section of experimental results and theoretical approaches to cope with the complex problems of structure and function of the brain. It was generally felt that such a joint meeting between experimentalists and theoreticians is of great importance for future development of this field. Modern experimental methods, e. g. multielectrode derivations allow or will allow us, in short, to collect huge amounts of data. Simi larly high-speed computers will flood us with an enormous number of outputs once the basic model equations have been chosen.

It is increasingly being recognized that the experimental and theoretical study of the complex system brain requires the cooperation of many disciplines, in cluding biology, medicine, physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, linguistics, and others. In this way brain research has become a truly interdis ciplinary endeavor. Indeed, the most important progress is quite often made when different disciplines cooperate. Thus it becomes necessary for scientists to look across the fence surrounding their disciplines. The present book is written precisely in this spirit. It addresses graduate students, professors and scientists in a variety of fields, such as biology, medicine and physics. Be yond its mathematical representation the book gives ample space to verbal and pictorial descriptions of the main and, as I believe, fundamental new insights, so that it will be of interest to a general readership, too. I use this opportunity to thank my former students, some of whom are my present co-workers, for their cooperation over many years. Among them I wish to mention in particular M. Bestehorn, L. Borland, H. Bunz, A. Daf fertshofer, T. Ditzinger, E. Fischer, A. Fuchs, R. Haas, R. Honlinger, V. Jirsa, M. Neufeld, M. Ossig, D. Reimann, M. Schanz, G. Schoner, P. Tass, C. Uhl. My particular thanks go to R. Friedrich and A. Wunderlin for their constant help in many respects. Stimulating discussions with a number of colleagues from a variety of fields are also highly appreciated.

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 new neuron assemblies doctrine, extending the concept of Sherrington, and new trends in this field. The book will appeal to scientists and graduate students.

The spontaneous formation of well organized structures out of germs or even out of chaos is one of the most fascinating phenomena and most challenging problems scientists are confronted with. Such phenomena are an experience of our daily life when we observe the growth of plants and animals. Thinking of much larger time scales, scientists are led into the problems of evolution, and, ultimately, of the origin of living matter. When we try to explain or understand in some sense these extremely complex biological phenomena it is a natural question, whether pro cesses of self-organization may be found in much simpler systems of the un animated world. In recent years it has become more and more evident that there exist numerous examples in physical and chemical systems where well organized spatial, temporal, or spatio-temporal structures arise out of chaotic states. Furthermore, as in living of these systems can be maintained only by a flux of organisms, the functioning energy (and matter) through them. In contrast to man-made machines, which are to exhibit special structures and functionings, these structures develop spon devised It came as a surprise to many scientists that taneously-they are self-organizing. numerous such systems show striking similarities in their behavior when passing from the disordered to the ordered state. This strongly indicates that the function of such systems obeys the same basic principles. In our book we wish to explain ing such basic principles and underlying conceptions and to present the mathematical tools to cope with them.

This book presents a novel approach to neural nets and thus offers a genuine alternative to the hitherto known neuro-computers. The new edition includes a section on transformation properties of the equations of the synergetic computer and on the invariance properties of the order parameter equations. Further additions are a new section on stereopsis and recent developments in the use of pulse-coupled neural nets for pattern recognition.

This book illustrates how modern mathematical wavelet transform techniques offer fresh insights into the complex behavior of neural systems at different levels: from the microscopic dynamics of individual cells to the macroscopic behavior of large neural networks. It also demonstrates how and where wavelet-based mathematical tools can provide an advantage over classical approaches used in neuroscience. The authors well describe single neuron and populational neural recordings. This 2nd edition discusses novel areas and significant advances resulting from experimental techniques and computational approaches developed since 2015, and includes three new topics: • Detection of fEPSPs in multielectrode LFPs recordings. • Analysis of Visual Sensory Processing in the Brain and BCI for Human Attention Control; • Analysis and Real-time Classification of Motor-related EEG Patterns; The book is a valuable resource for neurophysiologists and physicists familiar with nonlinear dynamical systems and data processing, as well as for graduate students specializing in these and related areas.

This is an excellent introduction for graduate students and nonspecialists to the field of mathematical and computational neurosciences. The book approaches the subject via pulsed-coupled neural networks, which have at their core the lighthouse and integrate-and-fire models. These allow for highly flexible modeling of realistic synaptic activity, synchronization and spatio-temporal pattern formation. The more advanced pulse-averaged equations are discussed.

Studies of mechanisms in the brain that allow complicated things to happen in a coordinated fashion have produced some of the most spectacular discoveries in neuroscience. This book provides eloquent support for the idea that spontaneous neuron activity, far from being mere noise, is actually the source of our cognitive abilities. It takes a fresh look at the coevolution of structure and function in the mammalian brain, illustrating how self-emerged oscillatory timing is the brain's fundamental organizer of neuronal information. The small-world-like connectivity of the cerebral cortex allows for global computation on multiple spatial and temporal scales. The perpetual interactions among the multiple network oscillators keep cortical systems in a highly sensitive "metastable" state and provide energy-efficient synchronizing mechanisms via weak links. In a sequence of "cycles," György Buzsáki guides the reader from the physics of oscillations through neuronal assembly organization to complex cognitive processing and memory storage. His clear, fluid writing-accessible to any reader with some scientific knowledge-is supplemented by extensive footnotes and references that make it just as gratifying and instructive a read for the specialist. The coherent view of a single author who has been at the forefront of research in this exciting field, this volume is essential reading for anyone interested in our rapidly evolving understanding of the brain.

This monograph from a leading neuroscientist and neural networks researcher investigates and offers a fresh approach to the perplexing scientific and philosophical problems of minds and brains. It explains how brains have evolved from our earliest vertebrate ancestors. It details how brains provide the basis for successful comprehension of the environment, for the formulation of actions and prediction of their consequences, and for cooperating or competing with other beings that have brains. The book also offers observations regarding such issues as: * how and why people fall in and out of love; * the biological basis for experiencing feelings of love and hate; and * how music and dance have provided the ancestral technology for forming social groups such as tribes and clans. The author reviews the history of the mind-brain problem, and demonstrates how the new sciences of behavioral electrophysiology and nonlinear dynamics -- combined with the latest computer technology -- have made it possible for us to observe brains in action. He also provides an answer to the question: What happens to a stimulus after it enters the brain? The answer: The stimulus triggers the construction of a percept and is then washed away. All that we know is what our brains construct for us by neurodynamics. Brains are not logical devices that process information. They are dynamical systems that create meaning through interactions with the environment -- and each other. The book shows how the learning process by which brains construct meaning tends to isolate brains into self-centered worlds, and how nature has provided a remedy -- first appearing in mammals as a mechanism for pair-bonding -- to ensure reproduction of the young dependent on parents. The remedy is based in the neurochemistry of sex which serves to dissolve belief structures in order to open the way for new patterns of understanding and behavior. Individuals experience these changes in various ways, such as falling in love, collegiate indoctrination, tribal bonding, brain washing, political or religious conversions, and related types of socialization. The highest forms of meaning for humans come through these social attachments.

This book presents the invited lectures given at the International Symposium on Synergetics of Cognition held at SchloB Elmau, Bavaria (Fed. Rep. of Germany), June 4-8, 1989. The understanding of the processes underlying cognition is certainly one of the most challenging and difficult problems confronting the human mind. It is an enterprise that requires the cooperation of scientists from fields ranging from the neurosciences and psychology through biology to the computer sciences, physics and mathematics. The papers included in this volume reflect this joint effort. As will be evident, there is a remarkable convergence of ideas stemming from various fields, for instance, the earlier ideas on Gestalt theory celebrate a come back and remarkable analogies are being established with modem concepts of self-organization as dealt with in the interdisciplinary field of synergetics. The individual topics range from the "microscopic level", where new exciting results on specific oscillations of neural activity are reported, to computer simulations of perception, and finally psychological experiments at the "macroscopic level". We hope that this book will convey to its readers the same enthusiasm that was felt by the participants of the symposium. We wish to thank Mrs. U. Funke for the excellent organisation of the sym posium, and the Volkswagen-Stiftung, Hannover, for its financial support. We are furthermore grateful to Christoph Stadler and Zora Franko for their help in com piling the name and subject indexes. Finally we wish to thank Springer-Verlag, in particular Dr. Angela Lahee, for the excellent cooperation.