This book covers recent advances in the understanding of brain structure, function and disorders based on the fundamental principles of physics. It covers a broad range of physical phenomena occurring in the brain circuits for perception, cognition, emotion and action, representing the building blocks of the mind. It provides novel insights into the devastating brain disorders of the mind such as schizophrenia, dementia, autism, aging or addictions, as well as into the new devices for brain repair. The book is aimed at basic researchers in the fields of neuroscience, physics, biophysics and clinicians in the fields of neurology, neurosurgery, psychology, psychiatry.

Updated and revised, the second edition of Handbook of Brain Microcircuits covers the functional organization of 50 brain regions. This now-classic text uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine the integration of structure, function, electrophysiology, pharmacology, brain imaging, and behavior. Through uniquely concise and authoritative chapters by leaders in their fields, the Handbook of Brain Microcircuits synthesizes many of the new principles of microcircuit organization that are defining a new era in understanding the brain connectome, integrating the major neuronal pathways and essential microcircuits with brain function. New to the Second Edition: · Insights into new regions of the brain through canonical microcircuit diagrams for each region · Latest methodology in optogenetics, neurotransmitter uncaging, computational models of neurons and microcircuits, serial ultrastructure reconstructions, cellular and regional imaging · Extrapolated data from new genetic tools and understandings applied to microcircuits in the mouse and Drosophila · Common principles across vertebrate and invertebrate microcircuit systems, one of the key goals of modern neuroscience

Leading neuroscientists discuss the function of microcircuits, functional modules that act as elementary processing units bridging single cells to systems and behavior. Microcircuits, functional modules that act as elementary processing units bridging single cells to systems and behavior, could provide the link between neurons and global brain function. Microcircuits are designed to serve particular functions; examples of these functional modules include the cortical columns in sensory cortici, glomeruli in the olfactory systems of insects and vertebrates, and networks generating different aspects of motor behavior. In this Dahlem Workshop volume, leading neuroscientists discuss how microcircuits work to bridge the single cell and systems levels and compare the intrinsic function of microcircuits with their ion channel subtypes, connectivity, and receptors, in order to understand the design principles and function of the microcircuits. The chapters cover the four major areas of microcircuit research: motor systems, including locomotion, respiration, and the saccadic eye movements; the striatum, the largest input station of the basal ganglia; olfactory systems and the neural organization of the glomeruli; and the neocortex. Each chapter is followed by a group report, a collaborative discussion among senior scientists. Contributors Lidia Alonso-Nanclares, Hagai Bergman, Maria Blatow, J. Paul Bolam, Ansgar Büschges, Antonio Caputi, Jean-Pierre Changeux, Javier DeFelipe, Carsten Duch, Paul Feinstein, Stuart Firestein, Yves Frégnac, Rainer W. Friedrich, C. Giovanni Galizia, Ann M. Graybiel, Charles A. Greer, Sten Grillner, Tadashi Isa, Ole Kiehn, Minoru Kimura, Anders Lanser, Gilles Laurent, Pierre-Marie Lledo, Wolfgang Maass, Henry Markram, David A. McCormick, Christoph M. Michel, Peter Mombaerts, Hannah Monyer, Hans-Joachim Pflüger, Dietmar Plenz, Diethelm W. Richter, Silke Sachse, H. Sebastian Seung, Keith T. Sillar, Jeffrey C. Smith, David L. Sparks, D. James Surmeier, Eörs Szathmáry, James M. Tepper, Jeff R. Wickens, Rafael Yuste

This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contact.

Brains must perform essential tasks of information manipulation, storage and integration. Neural circuits are believed to carry out these tasks, in part, by virtue of their connectivity: anatomical configurations that pattern action potentials in particular ways. Feedback inhibition circuits are a specific variety of neural connectivity known to be statistically overrepresented throughout the brain in a range of species. Yet analysis of the mechanisms by which useful function emerges from such structure is lacking. We analytically studied a simple model of delayed inhibitory feedback to elucidate this question. Here we describe new results linking structural parameters of the neural circuit to changes in its behavioral dynamics and ultimately in its correlative patterns of spiking. Such correlation in turn, is shown to provide the substrate for transient memory, useful to integrate information corresponding to input temporally and perform computation through time. Integrator neurons alone are incapable of introducing correlation in the sequence of inter- spike intervals (ISIs) they emit. However, in the system we investigate, inhibition causally impacts the neuron at a future time, opening the door to possible statistical dependency. Here, we examine analytically the dynamics underlying this dependency structure. We study the system first with the more tractable case of constant current (DC) input. For small input and short delays, the dynamics limit the ISI dependency to Markov order one. In these cases we are able to explore the behavior with a with a one-dimensional return map. However, if the feedback delay is long enough or the input is strong enough, Markov order increases and additional dimensions are necessary to explain more complex behavior. We examine the bounds of such behaviors in parameter space and inspect it more closely as a series of bifurcations induced by larger delays and increased input - each bifurcation revealing a regime of higher period trajectories capable of embedding more information. Building on this analytical understanding of the simpler case, we advance to studying stochastic input in the form of Poisson distributed excitatory post-synaptic potentials (EPSPs). Stochastic return plots, in direct analogy with the return maps of the constant input case, provide insight into first order correlations. However, larger delays and increased input once again expand the output sequence Markov order. The accessible state space and hence the informational storage capacity of the system grows. We use computational mechanics [Cru12] to further dissect the behavioral character of the feedback inhibition model circuit under stochastic input for arbitrary orders of dependence. We find that the underlying states of the system are arranged in layers, where outer layers are only visitable from states in one beneath. Each layer, made available by longer feedback delays or stronger input, introduces a boost in memory to the system. As memory increases, the circuit gains capacity to retain and integrate information about longer sequences of past input. This work demonstrates one minimal mechanism - potentially in operation throughout the brain in a broad range of species - by which information in spikes may be transiently stored and subsequently integrated within neural circuits. Such a mechanism of transient memory may prove to be an important, if not essential, means by which organisms compute with signals through time.

Progress in Brain Research is the most acclaimed and accomplished series in neuroscience, firmly established as an extensive documentation of the advances in contemporary brain research. The volumes, some of which are derived from important international symposia, contain authoritative reviews and original articles by invited specialists. The rigorous editing of the volumes assures that they will appeal to all laboratory and clinical brain research workers in the various disciplines: neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neuropharmacology, neuroendocrinology, neuropathology, basic neurology, biological psychiatry, and the behavioral sciences. This volume, The Cerebellum and Memory Formation: Structure, Computation and Function, covers topics including feedback control of cerebellar learning; cortico-cerebellar organization and skill acquisition; cerebellar plasticity and learning in the oculomotor system, and more. - Leading authors review the state-of-the-art in their field of investigation, and provide their views and perspectives for future research - The volume reflects current thinking about the ways in which the cerebellum can engage in learning, and the contributors come from a variety of research fields - The chapters express perspectives from different levels of analysis that range from molecular and cellular mechanisms through to long-range systems that allow the cerebellum to communicate with other brain areas