An introduction to the computational biology of reaching and pointing, with an emphasis on motor learning. Neuroscience involves the study of the nervous system, and its topics range from genetics to inferential reasoning. At its heart, however, lies a search for understanding how the environment affects the nervous system and how the nervous system, in turn, empowers us to interact with and alter our environment. This empowerment requires motor learning. The Computational Neurobiology of Reaching and Pointing addresses the neural mechanisms of one important form of motor learning. The authors integrate material from the computational, behavioral, and neural sciences of motor control that is not available in any other single source. The result is a unified, comprehensive model of reaching and pointing. The book is intended to be used as a text by graduate students in both neuroscience and bioengineering and as a reference source by experts in neuroscience, robotics, and other disciplines. The book begins with an overview of the evolution, anatomy, and physiology of the motor system, including the mechanisms for generating force and maintaining limb stability. The sections that follow, "Computing Locations and Displacements", "Skills, Adaptations, and Trajectories", and "Predictions, Decisions, and Flexibility", present a theory of sensorially guided reaching and pointing that evolves organically based on computational principles rather than a traditional structure-by-structure approach. The book also includes five appendixes that provide brief refreshers on fundamentals of biology, mathematics, physics, and neurophysiology, as well as a glossary of relevant terms. The authors have also made supplemental materials available on the Internet. These web documents provide source code for simulations, step-by-step derivations of certain mathematical formulations, and expanded explanations of some concepts.

An examination of the link between the vigor with which we move and the value that the brain assigns to the goal of the movement. Why do we reflexively run toward people we love, but only walk toward others? In Vigor, Reza Shadmehr and Alaa Ahmed examine the link between how the brain assigns value to things and how it controls our movements. They find that brain regions thought to be principally involved in decision making also affect movement vigor--and that brain regions thought to be principally responsible for movement also bias patterns of decision making.

A textbook for students with limited background in mathematics and computer coding, emphasizing computer tutorials that guide readers in producing models of neural behavior. This introductory text teaches students to understand, simulate, and analyze the complex behaviors of individual neurons and brain circuits. It is built around computer tutorials that guide students in producing models of neural behavior, with the associated Matlab code freely available online. From these models students learn how individual neurons function and how, when connected, neurons cooperate in a circuit. The book demonstrates through simulated models how oscillations, multistability, post-stimulus rebounds, and chaos can arise within either single neurons or circuits, and it explores their roles in the brain. The book first presents essential background in neuroscience, physics, mathematics, and Matlab, with explanations illustrated by many example problems. Subsequent chapters cover the neuron and spike production; single spike trains and the underlying cognitive processes; conductance-based models; the simulation of synaptic connections; firing-rate models of large-scale circuit operation; dynamical systems and their components; synaptic plasticity; and techniques for analysis of neuron population datasets, including principal components analysis, hidden Markov modeling, and Bayesian decoding. Accessible to undergraduates in life sciences with limited background in mathematics and computer coding, the book can be used in a “flipped” or “inverted” teaching approach, with class time devoted to hands-on work on the computer tutorials. It can also be a resource for graduate students in the life sciences who wish to gain computing skills and a deeper knowledge of neural function and neural circuits.

The Encyclopedia of the Neuroscience explores all areas of the discipline in its focused entries on a wide variety of topics in neurology, neurosurgery, psychiatry and other related areas of neuroscience. Each article is written by an expert in that specific domain and peer reviewed by the advisory board before acceptance into the encyclopedia. Each article contains a glossary, introduction, a reference section, and cross-references to other related encyclopedia articles. Written at a level suitable for university undergraduates, the breadth and depth of coverage will appeal beyond undergraduates to professionals and academics in related fields.

Neuromechanics of Human Movement, Sixth Edition, draws on the disciplines of neurophysiology and physics to explore how the nervous system controls the actions of muscles to produce human motion in relation to biomechanical principles

Neuromechanics of Human Movement, Fifth Edition, draws on the disciplines of neurophysiology and physics to explore how the nervous system controls the actions of muscles to produce human motion. This contemporary approach is much different from the traditional approach, which focuses solely on mechanics and does not consider the role of the sensorimotor system in the control of human movement. Authored by Roger Enoka, a widely recognized and esteemed scholar in neuromechanics, this influential text is an essential resource in biomechanics, motor learning, and applied physiology, making complex information accessible to students.

Current robots and other artificial systems are typically able to accomplish only one single task. Overcoming this limitation requires the development of control architectures and learning algorithms that can support the acquisition and deployment of several different skills, which in turn seems to require a modular and hierarchical organization. In this way, different modules can acquire different skills without catastrophic interference, and higher-level components of the system can solve complex tasks by exploiting the skills encapsulated in the lower-level modules. While machine learning and robotics recognize the fundamental importance of the hierarchical organization of behavior for building robots that scale up to solve complex tasks, research in psychology and neuroscience shows increasing evidence that modularity and hierarchy are pivotal organization principles of behavior and of the brain. They might even lead to the cumulative acquisition of an ever-increasing number of skills, which seems to be a characteristic of mammals, and humans in particular. This book is a comprehensive overview of the state of the art on the modeling of the hierarchical organization of behavior in animals, and on its exploitation in robot controllers. The book perspective is highly interdisciplinary, featuring models belonging to all relevant areas, including machine learning, robotics, neural networks, and computational modeling in psychology and neuroscience. The book chapters review the authors' most recent contributions to the investigation of hierarchical behavior, and highlight the open questions and most promising research directions. As the contributing authors are among the pioneers carrying out fundamental work on this topic, the book covers the most important and topical issues in the field from a computationally informed, theoretically oriented perspective. The book will be of benefit to academic and industrial researchers and graduate students in related disciplines.

Neurobiology of Language explores the study of language, a field that has seen tremendous progress in the last two decades. Key to this progress is the accelerating trend toward integration of neurobiological approaches with the more established understanding of language within cognitive psychology, computer science, and linguistics. This volume serves as the definitive reference on the neurobiology of language, bringing these various advances together into a single volume of 100 concise entries. The organization includes sections on the field's major subfields, with each section covering both empirical data and theoretical perspectives. "Foundational" neurobiological coverage is also provided, including neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, genetics, linguistic, and psycholinguistic data, and models. - Foundational reference for the current state of the field of the neurobiology of language - Enables brain and language researchers and students to remain up-to-date in this fast-moving field that crosses many disciplinary and subdisciplinary boundaries - Provides an accessible entry point for other scientists interested in the area, but not actively working in it – e.g., speech therapists, neurologists, and cognitive psychologists - Chapters authored by world leaders in the field – the broadest, most expert coverage available

Explains the relationship of electrophysiology, nonlinear dynamics, and the computational properties of neurons, with each concept presented in terms of both neuroscience and mathematics and illustrated using geometrical intuition. In order to model neuronal behavior or to interpret the results of modeling studies, neuroscientists must call upon methods of nonlinear dynamics. This book offers an introduction to nonlinear dynamical systems theory for researchers and graduate students in neuroscience. It also provides an overview of neuroscience for mathematicians who want to learn the basic facts of electrophysiology. Dynamical Systems in Neuroscience presents a systematic study of the relationship of electrophysiology, nonlinear dynamics, and computational properties of neurons. It emphasizes that information processing in the brain depends not only on the electrophysiological properties of neurons but also on their dynamical properties. The book introduces dynamical systems, starting with one- and two-dimensional Hodgkin-Huxley-type models and continuing to a description of bursting systems. Each chapter proceeds from the simple to the complex, and provides sample problems at the end. The book explains all necessary mathematical concepts using geometrical intuition; it includes many figures and few equations, making it especially suitable for non-mathematicians. Each concept is presented in terms of both neuroscience and mathematics, providing a link between the two disciplines. Nonlinear dynamical systems theory is at the core of computational neuroscience research, but it is not a standard part of the graduate neuroscience curriculum—or taught by math or physics department in a way that is suitable for students of biology. This book offers neuroscience students and researchers a comprehensive account of concepts and methods increasingly used in computational neuroscience. An additional chapter on synchronization, with more advanced material, can be found at the author's website, www.izhikevich.com.

Autism: The Movement Sensing Perspective is the result of a collaborative effort by parents, therapists, clinicians, and researchers from all disciplines in science including physics, engineering, and applied mathematics. This book poses questions regarding the current conceptualization and approach to the study of autism, providing an alternative unifying data-driven framework grounded in physiological factors. This book reaches beyond subjective descriptions of autistic phenomena and embraces a new era of objective measurements, analyses, and statistical inferences. The authors harness activities from the nervous systems across the brain and body (often in tandem), and introduce a platform for the comprehensive personalized phenotyping of individuals with autism. The impact of this approach is discussed to advance the development of tailored treatments options, enhance the ability to longitudinally track symptomatology, and to fundamentally empower affected individuals and their families. This book encompasses a new era for autism research and treatments, and our continuous effort to collectively empower and embrace the autistic community.