Clinical neuroscience is a branch of neuroscience that focuses on the scientific study of fundamental mechanisms that underlie diseases and disorders of the brain and central nervous system. It seeks to develop new ways of conceptualising and diagnosing such disorders and ultimately of developing novel treatments.
Background
A clinical neuroscientist is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in the field. Not all clinicians are clinical neuroscientists. Clinicians and scientists – including psychiatrists, neurologists, clinical psychologists, neuroscientists, and other specialists – use basic research findings from neuroscience in general and clinical neuroscience in particular to develop diagnostic methods and ways to prevent and treat neurobiological disorders. Such disorders include addiction, Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, anxiety disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, bipolar disorder, brain tumours, depression, Down syndrome, dyslexia, epilepsy, Huntington’s disease, multiple sclerosis, neurological AIDS, neurological trauma, pain, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, sleep disorders, stroke and Tourette syndrome.
While neurology, neurosurgery and psychiatry are the main medical specialties that use neuroscientific information, other specialties such as cognitive neuroscience, neuroradiology, neuropathology, ophthalmology, otorhinolaryngology, anaesthesiology and rehabilitation medicine can contribute to the discipline. Integration of the neuroscience perspective alongside other traditions like psychotherapy, social psychiatry or social psychology will become increasingly important.
One Mind for Research
The “One Mind for Research” forum was a convention held in Boston, Massachusetts on 23 to 25 May 2011 that produced the blueprint document A Ten-Year Plan for Neuroscience: From Molecules to Brain Health. Leading neuroscience researchers and practitioners in the United States contributed to the creation of this document, in which 17 key areas of opportunities are listed under the Clinical Neuroscience section. These include the following:
Rethinking curricula to break down intellectual silos.
Training translational neuroscientists and clinical investigators.
Investigating biomarkers.
Improving psychiatric diagnosis.
Developing a “Framingham Study of Brain Disorders” (i.e. longitudinal cohort for central nervous system disease).
Identifying developmental risk factors and producing effective interventions.
Discovering new treatments for pain, including neuropathic pain.
Treating disorders of neural signalling and pathological synchrony.
Treating disorders of immunity or inflammation.
Treating metabolic and mitochondrial disorders.
Developing new treatments for depression.
Treating addictive disorders.
Improving treatment of schizophrenia.
Preventing and treating cerebrovascular disease.
Achieving personalized medicine.
Understanding shared mechanisms of neurodegeneration.
Advancing anaesthesia.
In particular, it advocates for better integrated and scientifically driven curricula for practitioners, and it recommends that such curricula be shared among neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, neurosurgeons and neuroradiologists.
Given the various ethical, legal and societal implications for healthcare practitioners arising from advances in neuroscience, the University of Pennsylvania inaugurated the Penn Conference on Clinical Neuroscience and Society in July 2011.
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Benjamin Libet (12 April 1916 to 23 July 2007) was an American neuroscientist who was a pioneer in the field of human consciousness.
Libet was a researcher in the physiology department of the University of California, San Francisco. In 2003, he was the first recipient of the Virtual Nobel Prize in Psychology from the University of Klagenfurt, “for his pioneering achievements in the experimental investigation of consciousness, initiation of action, and free will”.
Life
Benjamin Libet, Neuroscientist.
He was the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. Gamer Libitsky, his paternal grandfather, came to America in 1865 from a town called Brusilov in Ukraine. His mother, Anna Charovsky, emigrated from Kiev in 1913. His parents first met in Chicago. They were married in 1915, and somewhat over nine months later Benjamin was born. He had a brother Meyer, and a sister Dorothy. Libet attended a public elementary school and John Marshall High School. Libet graduated from the University of Chicago, where he studied with Ralph Gerard.
In the 1970s, Libet was involved in research into neural activity and sensation thresholds. His initial investigations involved determining how much activation at specific sites in the brain was required to trigger artificial somatic sensations, relying on routine psychophysical procedures. This work soon crossed into an investigation into human consciousness; his most famous experiment was meant to demonstrate that the unconscious electrical processes in the brain called Bereitschaftspotential (or readiness potential) discovered by Lüder Deecke and Hans Helmut Kornhuber in 1964 precede conscious decisions to perform volitional, spontaneous acts, implying that unconscious neuronal processes precede and potentially cause volitional acts which are retrospectively felt to be consciously motivated by the subject. The experiment has caused controversy not only because it challenges the belief in free will, but also due to a criticism of its implicit assumptions. It has also inspired further study of the neuroscience of free will.
Volitional Acts and Readiness Potential
Equipment
To gauge the relation between unconscious readiness potential and subjective feelings of volition and action, Libet required an objective method of marking the subject’s conscious experience of the will to perform an action in time, and afterward comparing this information with data recording the brain’s electrical activity during the same interval. For this, Libet required specialised pieces of equipment.
The first of these was the cathode ray oscilloscope, an instrument typically used to graph the amplitude and frequency of electrical signals. With a few adjustments, however, the oscilloscope could be made to act as a timer: instead of displaying a series of waves, the output was a single dot that could be made to travel in a circular motion, similar to the movements of a second hand around a clock face. This timer was set so that the time it took for the dot to travel between intervals marked on the oscilloscope was approximately forty-three milliseconds. As the angular velocity of the dot remained constant, any change in distance could easily be converted into the time it took to travel that distance.
To monitor brain activity during the same period, Libet used an electroencephalogram (EEG). The EEG uses small electrodes placed at various points on the scalp that measure neuronal activity in the cortex, the outermost portion of the brain, which is associated with higher cognition. The transmission of electrical signals across regions of the cortex causes differences in measured voltage across EEG electrodes. These differences in voltage reflect changes in neuronal activity in specific areas of the cortex.
To measure the actual time of the voluntary motor act, an electromyograph (EMG) recorded the muscle movement using electrodes on the skin over the activated muscle of the forearm. The EMG time was taken as the zero time relative to which all other times were calculated.
Methods
Researchers carrying out Libet’s procedure would ask each participant to sit at a desk in front of the oscilloscope timer. They would affix the EEG electrodes to the participant’s scalp, and would then instruct the subject to carry out some small, simple motor activity, such as pressing a button, or flexing a finger or wrist, within a certain time frame. No limits were placed on the number of times the subject could perform the action within this period.
During the experiment, the subject would be asked to note the position of the dot on the oscilloscope timer when “he/she was first aware of the wish or urge to act” (control tests with Libet’s equipment demonstrated a comfortable margin of error of only -50 milliseconds). Pressing the button also recorded the position of the dot on the oscillator, this time electronically. By comparing the marked time of the button’s pushing and the subject’s conscious decision to act, researchers were able to calculate the total time of the trial from the subject’s initial volition through to the resultant action. On average, approximately two hundred milliseconds elapsed between the first appearance of conscious will to press the button and the act of pressing it.
Researchers also analysed EEG recordings for each trial with respect to the timing of the action. It was noted that brain activity involved in the initiation of the action, primarily centred in the secondary motor cortex, occurred, on average, approximately five hundred milliseconds before the trial ended with the pushing of the button. That is to say, researchers recorded mounting brain activity related to the resultant action as many as three hundred milliseconds before subjects reported the first awareness of conscious will to act. In other words, apparently conscious decisions to act were preceded by an unconscious buildup of electrical activity within the brain – the change in EEG signals reflecting this buildup came to be called Bereitschaftspotential or readiness potential. As of 2008, the upcoming outcome of a decision could be found in study of the brain activity in the prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 7 seconds before the subject was aware of their decision.
Implications of Libet’s Experiments
There is no majority agreement about the interpretation or the significance of Libet’s experiments. However, Libet’s experiments suggest to some that unconscious processes in the brain are the true initiator of volitional acts, and free will therefore plays no part in their initiation. If unconscious brain processes have already taken steps to initiate an action before consciousness is aware of any desire to perform it, the causal role of consciousness in volition is all but eliminated, according to this interpretation. For instance, Susan Blackmore’s interpretation is “that conscious experience takes some time to build up and is much too slow to be responsible for making things happen.”
Such a conclusion would be overdrawn as in a subsequent run of experiments, Libet found that even after the awareness of the decision to push the button had happened, people still had the capability to veto the decision and not to push the button. So they still had the capability to refrain from the decision that had earlier been made. Some therefore take this brain impulse to push the button to suggest just a readiness potential which the subject may either then go along with or may veto. So the person still has power over his or her decision.
For this reason, Libet himself regards his experimental results to be entirely compatible with the notion of free will. He finds that conscious volition is exercised in the form of ‘the power of veto’ (sometimes called “free won’t”); the idea that conscious acquiescence is required to allow the unconscious buildup of the readiness potential to be actualized as a movement. While consciousness plays no part in the instigation of volitional acts, Libet suggested that it may still have a part to play in suppressing or withholding certain acts instigated by the unconscious. Libet noted that everyone has experienced the withholding from performing an unconscious urge. Since the subjective experience of the conscious will to act preceded the action by only 200 milliseconds, this leaves consciousness only 100-150 milliseconds to veto an action (this is because the final 20 milliseconds prior to an act are occupied by the activation of the spinal motor neurones by the primary motor cortex, and the margin of error indicated by tests utilising the oscillator must also be considered). However, Max Velmans has argued: “Libet has shown that the experienced intention to perform an act is preceded by cerebral initiation. Why should the experienced decision to veto that intention, or to actively or passively promote its completion, be any different?”
In a study published in 2012, Aaron Schurger, Jacobo D. Sitt, and Stanislas Dehaene proposed that the occurrence of the readiness potentials observed in Libet-type experiments is stochastically occasioned by ongoing spontaneous subthreshold fluctuations in neural activity, rather than an unconscious goal-directed operation.
Libet’s experiments have received support from other research related to the Neuroscience of free will.
Reactions by Dualist Philosophers
The German philosopher Uwe Meixner commented:
“For making an informed decision, the self needs to be conscious of the facts relevant to the decision prior to making the decision; but…the self certainly does not need to be conscious of making the decision at the very same time it makes it…the consciousness of a state of affairs P being (presently) the case is always somewhat later than the actual fact of P’s being the case…”
When one is speaking to another individual, as a result of the limited velocity of light signals and the limited velocity of sound waves and the limited velocity of nerve signals, what one is experiencing as now is always slightly in the past. No person ever has a definite present awareness of what is occurring around them. There is a small time delay due to the limited velocity of these many different signals that is indiscernible to people because it is extremely short. Meixner also says, “it is hardly surprising that the consciousness of making a decision is no exception to this general rule, which is due to the dependence of consciousness on neurophysiology.”
Just as nothing that is actually presently there can be observed because of the limited velocity of light but events as they are just a little in the past can be observed, in the same way people do not have a consciousness of their own decisions simultaneously with their making them but they have it undetectedly afterwards.
If the mind has the power to think without being causally determined, then all it requires to do in order to make accountable, knowledgeable, free decisions is consciousness of the pertinent facts before its decision making. However, the mind does not require to be aware or conscious of the decision itself at the same it makes that decision.
It has been suggested that consciousness is merely a side-effect of neuronal functions, an epiphenomenon of brain states. Libet’s experiments are proffered in support of this theory; our reports of conscious instigation of our own acts are, in this view, a mistake of retrospection. However, some dualist philosophers have disputed this conclusion:
In short, the [neuronal] causes and correlates of conscious experience should not be confused with their ontology … the only evidence about what conscious experiences are like comes from first-person sources, which consistently suggest consciousness to be something other than or additional to neuronal activity.
A more general criticism from a dualist-interactionist perspective has been raised by Alexander Batthyany who points out that Libet asked his subjects to merely “let the urge [to move] appear on its own at any time without any pre-planning or concentration on when to act”. According to Batthyany, neither reductionist nor non-reductionist agency theories claim that urges which appear on their own are suitable examples of (allegedly) consciously caused events because one cannot passively wait for an urge to occur while at the same time being the one who is consciously bringing it about. Libet’s results thus cannot be interpreted to provide empirical evidence in favour of agency reductionism, since non-reductionist theories, even including dualist interactionism, would predict the very same experimental results.
Timing Issues
Daniel Dennett argues that no clear conclusion about volition can be derived from Libet’s experiment because of ambiguities in the timings of the different events involved. Libet tells when the readiness potential occurs objectively, using electrodes, but relies on the subject reporting the position of the hand of a clock to determine when the conscious decision was made. As Dennett points out, this is only a report of where it seems to the subject that various things come together, not of the objective time at which they actually occur.
Suppose Libet knows that your readiness potential peaked at millisecond 6,810 of the experimental trial, and the clock dot was straight down (which is what you reported you saw) at millisecond 7,005. How many milliseconds should he have to add to this number to get the time you were conscious of it? The light gets from your clock face to your eyeball almost instantaneously, but the path of the signals from retina through lateral geniculate nucleus to striate cortex takes 5 to 10 milliseconds – a paltry fraction of the 300 milliseconds offset, but how much longer does it take them to get to you (Or are you located in the striate cortex?). The visual signals have to be processed before they arrive at wherever they need to arrive for you to make a conscious decision of simultaneity. Libet’s method presupposes, in short, that we can locate the intersection of two trajectories:
The rising-to-consciousness of signals representing the decision to flick.
The rising to consciousness of signals representing successive clock-face orientations.
So that these events occur side-by-side as it were in place where their simultaneity can be noted.
Subjective Backward Referral or “Antedating” of Sensory Experience
Libet’s early theory, resting on study of stimuli and sensation, was found bizarre by some commentators, including Patricia Churchland, due to the apparent idea of backward causation. Libet argued that data suggested that we retrospectively “antedate” the beginning of a sensation to the moment of the primary neuronal response. People interpreted Libet’s work on stimulus and sensation in a number of different ways. John Eccles presented Libet’s work as suggesting a backward step in time made by a non-physical mind. Edoardo Bisiach (1988) described Eccles as tendentious, but commented:
This is indeed the conclusion that the authors (Libet, et al.) themselves seem to be willing to force upon the reader. … They dispute an alternative explanation, suggested by Mackay in a discussion with Libet (1979, p. 219) to the effect that ‘the subjective referral backwards in time may be due to an illusory judgment made by the subject when he reports the timings’, and more significant, Libet, et al. (1979, p. 220) hint at ‘serious though not insurmountable difficulties’ for the identity theory (of mind and matter) caused by their data.
Libet later concluded that there appeared to be no neural mechanism that could be viewed as directly mediating or accounting for the subjective sensory referrals backward in time [emphasis Libet’s]. Libet postulated that the primary evoked potential (EP) serves as a “time marker”. The EP is a sharp positive potential appearing in the appropriate sensory region of the brain about 25 milliseconds after a skin stimulus. Libet’s experiments demonstrated that there is an automatic subjective referral of the conscious experience backwards in time to this time marker. The skin sensation does not enter our conscious awareness until about 500 milliseconds after the skin stimulus, but we subjectively feel that the sensation occurred at the time of the stimulus.
For Libet, these subjective referrals would appear to be purely a mental function with no corresponding neural basis in the brain. Indeed, this suggestion can be more broadly generalized:
The transformation from neuronal patterns to a subjective representation would appear to develop in a mental sphere that has emerged from that neuronal pattern. … My view of mental subjective function is that it is an emergent property of appropriate brain functions. The conscious mental cannot exist without the brain processes that give rise to it. However, having emerged from brain activities as a unique ‘property’ of that physical system, the mental can exhibit phenomena not evident in the neural brain that produced it.
Conscious Mental Field Theory
In the later part of his career, Libet proposed a theory of the conscious mental field (CMF) to explain how the mental arises from the physical brain. The two main motivations prompting this proposal were:
The phenomenon of the unity of subjective conscious experience; and
The phenomenon that conscious mental function appears to influence nerve cell activity.
Regarding the unity of conscious experience, it was increasingly evident to Libet that many functions of the cortex are localised, even to a microscopic level in a region of the brain, and yet the conscious experiences related to these areas are integrated and unified. We do not experience an infinite array of individual events but rather a unitary integrated consciousness, for example, with no gaps in spatial and coloured images. For Libet, some unifying process or phenomenon likely mediates the transformation of localised, particularised neuronal representations into our unified conscious experience. This process seemed to be best accountable in a mental sphere that appears to emerge from the neural events, namely, the conscious mental field.
The CMF is the mediator between the physical activities of nerve cells and the emergence of subjective experience. Thus the CMF is the entity in which unified subjective experience is present and provides the causal ability to affect or alter some neuronal functions. Libet proposed the CMF as a “property” of an emergent phenomenon of the brain; it does not exist without the brain but emerges from the appropriate system of neural activity. This proposal is related to electromagnetic theories of consciousness.
To test the proposed causal ability of the CMF to affect or alter neuronal functions, Libet proposed an experimental design, which would surgically isolate a slab of cerebral cortex (in a patient for whom such a procedure was therapeutically required). If electrical stimulation of the isolated cortex can elicit an introspective report by the subject, the CMF must be able to activate appropriate cerebral areas in order to produce the verbal report. This result would demonstrate directly that a conscious mental field could affect neuronal functions in a way that would account for the activity of the conscious will. Detailed description of the proposed experimental test is as follows:
A small slab of sensory cortex (subserving any modality) is neuronally isolated but kept viable by making all the cortical cuts subpially. This allows the blood vessels in the pia to project into the isolated slab and provide blood flow from the arterial branches that dip vertically into the cortex. The prediction is that electrical stimulation of the sensory slab will produce a subjective response reportable by the subject. That is, activity in the isolated slab can contribute by producing its own portion of the CMF.
Libet further elaborated on CMF:
The CMF is not a Cartesian dualistic phenomenon; it is not separable from the brain. Rather, it is proposed to be a localizable system property produced by appropriate neuronal activities, and it cannot exist without them. Again, it is not a ghost in the machine. But, as a system produced by billions of nerve cell actions, it can have properties not directly predictable from these neuronal activities. It is a non-physical phenomenon, like the subjective experience that it represents. The process by which the CMF arises from its contributing elements is not describable. It must simply be regarded as a new fundamental given phenomenon in nature, which is different from other fundamental givens, like gravity or electromagnetism.
Tributes
Dr. Robert W. Doty, professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Rochester:
Benjamin Libet’s discoveries are of extraordinary interest. His is almost the only approach yet to yield any credible evidence of how conscious awareness is produced by the brain. Libet’s work is unique, and speaks to questions asked by all humankind.
Dr. Susan J. Blackmore, visiting lecturer at the University of the West of England, Bristol:
Many philosophers and scientists have argued that free will is an illusion. Unlike all of them, Benjamin Libet found a way to test it.
In Popular Culture
Libet and his research into the delay is referenced several times in song titles by musical artist the Caretaker, who was influenced by some of his work. The 2011 album An Empty Bliss Beyond This World contains a song called “Libet’s Delay”, which went on to be one of the more popular tracks from it. The Caretaker’s final release, Everywhere at the End of Time, contains the songs “Back There Benjamin,” (Referring to his first name) “Libet’s All Joyful Camaraderie” and “Libet Delay”, with the latter being a far more twisted, distorted version of the original “Libet’s Delay”. Also, the 2019 extra album Everywhere, an Empty Bliss includes a track named “Benjamin Beyond Bliss”.
Nancy Coover Andreasen (born 11 November 1938) is an American neuroscientist and neuropsychiatrist.
She currently holds the Andrew H. Woods Chair of Psychiatry at the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa.
Early Life
Andreasen was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Nebraska with majors in English, History, and Philosophy. She received a Ph.D. in English literature. She was a Professor of Renaissance Literature in the Department of English at the University of Iowa for 5 years. She published scholarly articles on John Donne and her first book in the field of Renaissance English literature: John Donne: Conservative Revolutionary
Clinical
A serious illness after the birth of her first daughter piqued Andreasen’s interest in medicine and biomedical research, and she decided to change careers to study medicine. She attended medical school at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, graduated in 1970 and completed her psychiatry residency in 1973. In 1974, she conducted the first modern empirical study of creativity that recognised some association between creativity and manic-depressive illness.
Early in her career she recognised that negative symptoms and associated cognitive impairments had more debilitating effects than psychotic symptoms, like delusions and hallucinations. While psychotic symptoms represent an exaggeration of normal brain/mind functions, negative symptoms represent a loss of normal functions, for example, alogia the loss of the ability to think and speak fluently, affective blunting the loss of the ability to express emotions, avolition, loss of the ability to initiate goal-directed activity, and anhedonia, loss of the ability to experience emotions. The papers describing these concepts have become citation classics, as determined by the Science Citation Index produced by the Institute for Scientific Information. Andreasen is largely responsible for development of the concept of negative symptoms in schizophrenia, having created the first widely used scales for rating the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. She became one of the world’s foremost authorities on schizophrenia. She contributed to nosology and phenomenology by serving on the DSM III and DSM IV Task Forces, chairing the Schizophrenia Work Group for DSM IV.
Andreasen pioneered the application of neuroimaging techniques in major mental illnesses, and published the first quantitative study of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of brain abnormalities in schizophrenia. Andreasen became director of the Iowa Mental Health Clinical Research Centre and the Psychiatric Iowa Neuroimaging Consortium. She leads a multidisciplinary team working on three-dimensional image analysis techniques to integrate multi-modality imaging and on developing automated analysis of structural and functional imaging techniques. Software developed by this team is known as BRAINS (Brain Research: Analysis of Images, Networks, and Systems).
She resumed research about the neuroscience of creativity in the 2000s.
Honours
In 2000 President Clinton awarded her the National Medal of Science, America’s highest award for scientific achievement. This award was given for:
her pivotal contributions to the social and behavioral sciences, through the integrative study of mind, brain, and behavior, by joining behavioral science with the technologies of neuroscience and neuroimaging in order to understand mental processes such as memory and creativity, and mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.
She has received numerous other awards, including the Interbrew-Baillet-Latour Prize from the Belgian Academy of Science, the Lieber Schizophrenia Research Prize, and many awards from the American Psychiatric Association, including its Research Prize, the Judd Marmor Award, and the Distinguished Service Award. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. She was elected to serve two terms on the governing council of the latter organisation. She chaired two Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Sciences Committees that published influential reports. She served as Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Psychiatry for 13 years. She is past president of the American Psychopathological Association and the Psychiatric Research Society. She was the founding Chair of the Neuroscience Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is a member of the Society for Neuroscience and on the Honorary International Editorial Advisory Board of the Mens Sana Monographs.
Experience of Sexism
She has spoken about her experiences of sexism. Early in her career she found that her articles were more likely to be accepted for publication when she used her initials instead of her first name.
Personal Life
She is the mother of two daughters. Suz Andreasen, who was a jewellry designer who lived in New York City, died from ovarian cancer on 10 November 2010. Robin Andreasen is a professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Delaware. She is married to Captain Terry Gwinn, a retired military officer who flew helicopter gunships for 3.5 tours during the Vietnam War.
Selected Bibliography
She has written three books for the general public:
“The Broken Brain: The Biological Revolution in Psychiatry” (1983).
“Brave New Brain: Conquering Mental Illness in the Era of the Genome” (2001).
“The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of Genius”.
She authored, co-authored, or edited twelve other scholarly books and over 600 articles.
John Donne: Conservative Revolutionary. 1967.
Introductory Textbook of Psychiatry, Fourth Edition by Nancy C. Andreasen and Donald W. Black.
Understanding mental illness: A layman’s guide (Religion and medicine series).
Schizophrenia: From Mind to Molecule (American Psychopathological Association).
Neuroscience (or neurobiology) is the scientific study of the nervous system. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developmental biology, cytology, mathematical modelling, and psychology to understand the fundamental and emergent properties of neurons and neural circuits. The understanding of the biological basis of learning, memory, behaviour, perception, and consciousness has been described by Eric Kandel as the “ultimate challenge” of the biological sciences.
The scope of neuroscience has broadened over time to include different approaches used to study the nervous system at different scales and the techniques used by neuroscientists have expanded enormously, from molecular and cellular studies of individual neurons to imaging of sensory, motor and cognitive tasks in the brain.
Brief History
The earliest study of the nervous system dates to ancient Egypt. Trepanation, the surgical practice of either drilling or scraping a hole into the skull for the purpose of curing head injuries or mental disorders, or relieving cranial pressure, was first recorded during the Neolithic period. Manuscripts dating to 1700 BC indicate that the Egyptians had some knowledge about symptoms of brain damage.
Early views on the function of the brain regarded it to be a “cranial stuffing” of sorts. In Egypt, from the late Middle Kingdom onwards, the brain was regularly removed in preparation for mummification. It was believed at the time that the heart was the seat of intelligence. According to Herodotus, the first step of mummification was to “take a crooked piece of iron, and with it draw out the brain through the nostrils, thus getting rid of a portion, while the skull is cleared of the rest by rinsing with drugs.”
The view that the heart was the source of consciousness was not challenged until the time of the Greek physician Hippocrates. He believed that the brain was not only involved with sensation – since most specialised organs (e.g. eyes, ears, tongue) are located in the head near the brain – but was also the seat of intelligence. Plato also speculated that the brain was the seat of the rational part of the soul. Aristotle, however, believed the heart was the centre of intelligence and that the brain regulated the amount of heat from the heart. This view was generally accepted until the Roman physician Galen, a follower of Hippocrates and physician to Roman gladiators, observed that his patients lost their mental faculties when they had sustained damage to their brains.
Abulcasis, Averroes, Avicenna, Avenzoar, and Maimonides, active in the Medieval Muslim world, described a number of medical problems related to the brain. In Renaissance Europe, Vesalius (1514-1564), René Descartes (1596-1650), Thomas Willis (1621-1675) and Jan Swammerdam (1637-1680) also made several contributions to neuroscience.
Luigi Galvani’s pioneering work in the late 1700s set the stage for studying the electrical excitability of muscles and neurons. In the first half of the 19th century, Jean Pierre Flourens pioneered the experimental method of carrying out localised lesions of the brain in living animals describing their effects on motricity, sensibility and behaviour. In 1843 Emil du Bois-Reymond demonstrated the electrical nature of the nerve signal, whose speed Hermann von Helmholtz proceeded to measure, and in 1875 Richard Caton found electrical phenomena in the cerebral hemispheres of rabbits and monkeys. Adolf Beck published in 1890 similar observations of spontaneous electrical activity of the brain of rabbits and dogs. Studies of the brain became more sophisticated after the invention of the microscope and the development of a staining procedure by Camillo Golgi during the late 1890s. The procedure used a silver chromate salt to reveal the intricate structures of individual neurons. His technique was used by Santiago Ramón y Cajal and led to the formation of the neuron doctrine, the hypothesis that the functional unit of the brain is the neuron. Golgi and Ramón y Cajal shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 for their extensive observations, descriptions, and categorizations of neurons throughout the brain.
In parallel with this research, work with brain-damaged patients by Paul Broca suggested that certain regions of the brain were responsible for certain functions. At the time, Broca’s findings were seen as a confirmation of Franz Joseph Gall’s theory that language was localised and that certain psychological functions were localised in specific areas of the cerebral cortex. The localisation of function hypothesis was supported by observations of epileptic patients conducted by John Hughlings Jackson, who correctly inferred the organisation of the motor cortex by watching the progression of seizures through the body. Carl Wernicke further developed the theory of the specialisation of specific brain structures in language comprehension and production. Modern research through neuroimaging techniques, still uses the Brodmann cerebral cytoarchitectonic map (referring to study of cell structure) anatomical definitions from this era in continuing to show that distinct areas of the cortex are activated in the execution of specific tasks.
During the 20th century, neuroscience began to be recognised as a distinct academic discipline in its own right, rather than as studies of the nervous system within other disciplines. Eric Kandel and collaborators have cited David Rioch, Francis O. Schmitt, and Stephen Kuffler as having played critical roles in establishing the field. Rioch originated the integration of basic anatomical and physiological research with clinical psychiatry at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, starting in the 1950s. During the same period, Schmitt established a neuroscience research programme within the Biology Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, bringing together biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics. The first freestanding neuroscience department (then called Psychobiology) was founded in 1964 at the University of California, Irvine by James L. McGaugh. This was followed by the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, which was founded in 1966 by Stephen Kuffler.
The understanding of neurons and of nervous system function became increasingly precise and molecular during the 20th century. For example, in 1952, Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley presented a mathematical model for transmission of electrical signals in neurons of the giant axon of a squid, which they called “action potentials”, and how they are initiated and propagated, known as the Hodgkin-Huxley model. In 1961–1962, Richard FitzHugh and J. Nagumo simplified Hodgkin-Huxley, in what is called the FitzHugh-Nagumo model. In 1962, Bernard Katz modelled neurotransmission across the space between neurons known as synapses. Beginning in 1966, Eric Kandel and collaborators examined biochemical changes in neurons associated with learning and memory storage in Aplysia. In 1981 Catherine Morris and Harold Lecar combined these models in the Morris-Lecar model. Such increasingly quantitative work gave rise to numerous biological neuron models and models of neural computation.
As a result of the increasing interest about the nervous system, several prominent neuroscience organizations have been formed to provide a forum to all neuroscientist during the 20th century. For example, the International Brain Research Organisation was founded in 1961, the International Society for Neurochemistry in 1963, the European Brain and Behaviour Society in 1968, and the Society for Neuroscience in 1969. Recently, the application of neuroscience research results has also given rise to applied disciplines as neuroeconomics, neuroeducation, neuroethics, and neurolaw.
Over time, brain research has gone through philosophical, experimental, and theoretical phases, with work on brain simulation predicted to be important in the future.
Modern Neuroscience
The scientific study of the nervous system increased significantly during the second half of the twentieth century, principally due to advances in molecular biology, electrophysiology, and computational neuroscience. This has allowed neuroscientists to study the nervous system in all its aspects: how it is structured, how it works, how it develops, how it malfunctions, and how it can be changed.
For example, it has become possible to understand, in much detail, the complex processes occurring within a single neuron. Neurons are cells specialised for communication. They are able to communicate with neurons and other cell types through specialised junctions called synapses, at which electrical or electrochemical signals can be transmitted from one cell to another. Many neurons extrude a long thin filament of axoplasm called an axon, which may extend to distant parts of the body and are capable of rapidly carrying electrical signals, influencing the activity of other neurons, muscles, or glands at their termination points. A nervous system emerges from the assemblage of neurons that are connected to each other.
The vertebrate nervous system can be split into two parts: the central nervous system (defined as the brain and spinal cord), and the peripheral nervous system. In many species – including all vertebrates – the nervous system is the most complex organ system in the body, with most of the complexity residing in the brain. The human brain alone contains around one hundred billion neurons and one hundred trillion synapses; it consists of thousands of distinguishable substructures, connected to each other in synaptic networks whose intricacies have only begun to be unravelled. At least one out of three of the approximately 20,000 genes belonging to the human genome is expressed mainly in the brain.
Due to the high degree of plasticity of the human brain, the structure of its synapses and their resulting functions change throughout life.
Making sense of the nervous system’s dynamic complexity is a formidable research challenge. Ultimately, neuroscientists would like to understand every aspect of the nervous system, including how it works, how it develops, how it malfunctions, and how it can be altered or repaired. Analysis of the nervous system is therefore performed at multiple levels, ranging from the molecular and cellular levels to the systems and cognitive levels. The specific topics that form the main foci of research change over time, driven by an ever-expanding base of knowledge and the availability of increasingly sophisticated technical methods. Improvements in technology have been the primary drivers of progress. Developments in electron microscopy, computer science, electronics, functional neuroimaging, and genetics and genomics have all been major drivers of progress.
Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience
Basic questions addressed in molecular neuroscience include the mechanisms by which neurons express and respond to molecular signals and how axons form complex connectivity patterns. At this level, tools from molecular biology and genetics are used to understand how neurons develop and how genetic changes affect biological functions. The morphology, molecular identity, and physiological characteristics of neurons and how they relate to different types of behaviour are also of considerable interest.
Questions addressed in cellular neuroscience include the mechanisms of how neurons process signals physiologically and electrochemically. These questions include how signals are processed by neurites and somas and how neurotransmitters and electrical signals are used to process information in a neuron. Neurites are thin extensions from a neuronal cell body, consisting of dendrites (specialised to receive synaptic inputs from other neurons) and axons (specialised to conduct nerve impulses called action potentials). Somas are the cell bodies of the neurons and contain the nucleus.
Another major area of cellular neuroscience is the investigation of the development of the nervous system. Questions include the patterning and regionalisation of the nervous system, neural stem cells, differentiation of neurons and glia (neurogenesis and gliogenesis), neuronal migration, axonal and dendritic development, trophic interactions, and synapse formation.
Computational neurogenetic modelling is concerned with the development of dynamic neuronal models for modelling brain functions with respect to genes and dynamic interactions between genes.
Neural Circuits and Systems
Questions in systems neuroscience include how neural circuits are formed and used anatomically and physiologically to produce functions such as reflexes, multisensory integration, motor coordination, circadian rhythms, emotional responses, learning, and memory. In other words, they address how these neural circuits function in large-scale brain networks, and the mechanisms through which behaviours are generated. For example, systems level analysis addresses questions concerning specific sensory and motor modalities: how does vision work? How do songbirds learn new songs and bats localize with ultrasound? How does the somatosensory system process tactile information? The related fields of neuroethology and neuropsychology address the question of how neural substrates underlie specific animal and human behaviours. Neuroendocrinology and psychoneuroimmunology examine interactions between the nervous system and the endocrine and immune systems, respectively. Despite many advancements, the way that networks of neurons perform complex cognitive processes and behaviours is still poorly understood.
Cognitive and Behavioural Neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience addresses the questions of how psychological functions are produced by neural circuitry. The emergence of powerful new measurement techniques such as neuroimaging (e.g. fMRI, PET, SPECT), EEG, MEG, electrophysiology, optogenetics and human genetic analysis combined with sophisticated experimental techniques from cognitive psychology allows neuroscientists and psychologists to address abstract questions such as how cognition and emotion are mapped to specific neural substrates. Although many studies still hold a reductionist stance looking for the neurobiological basis of cognitive phenomena, recent research shows that there is an interesting interplay between neuroscientific findings and conceptual research, soliciting and integrating both perspectives. For example, neuroscience research on empathy solicited an interesting interdisciplinary debate involving philosophy, psychology and psychopathology. Moreover, the neuroscientific identification of multiple memory systems related to different brain areas has challenged the idea of memory as a literal reproduction of the past, supporting a view of memory as a generative, constructive and dynamic process.
Neuroscience is also allied with the social and behavioural sciences as well as nascent interdisciplinary fields such as neuroeconomics, decision theory, social neuroscience, and neuromarketing to address complex questions about interactions of the brain with its environment. A study into consumer responses for example uses EEG to investigate neural correlates associated with narrative transportation into stories about energy efficiency.
Computational Neuroscience
Questions in computational neuroscience can span a wide range of levels of traditional analysis, such as development, structure, and cognitive functions of the brain. Research in this field utilises mathematical models, theoretical analysis, and computer simulation to describe and verify biologically plausible neurons and nervous systems. For example, biological neuron models are mathematical descriptions of spiking neurons which can be used to describe both the behaviour of single neurons as well as the dynamics of neural networks. Computational neuroscience is often referred to as theoretical neuroscience.
Nanoparticles in medicine are versatile in treating neurological disorders showing promising results in mediating drug transport across the blood brain barrier. Implementing nanoparticles in antiepileptic drugs enhances their medical efficacy by increasing bioavailability in the bloodstream, as well as offering a measure of control in release time concentration. Although nanoparticles can assist therapeutic drugs by adjusting physical properties to achieve desirable effects, inadvertent increases in toxicity often occur in preliminary drug trials. Furthermore, production of nanomedicine for drug trials is economically consuming, hindering progress in their implementation. Computational models in nanoneuroscience provide alternatives to study the efficacy of nanotechnology-based medicines in neurological disorders while mitigating potential side effects and development costs.
Nanomaterials often operate at length scales between classical and quantum regimes. Due to the associated uncertainties at the length scales that nanomaterials operate, it is difficult to predict their behaviour prior to in vivo studies. Classically, the physical processes which occur throughout neurons are analogous to electrical circuits. Designers focus on such analogies and model brain activity as a neural circuit. Success in computational modelling of neurons have led to the development of stereochemical models that accurately predict acetylcholine receptor-based synapses operating at microsecond time scales.
Ultrafine nanoneedles for cellular manipulations are thinner than the smallest single walled carbon nanotubes. Computational quantum chemistry is used to design ultrafine nanomaterials with highly symmetrical structures to optimise geometry, reactivity and stability.
Behaviour of nanomaterials are dominated by long ranged non-bonding interactions. Electrochemical processes that occur throughout the brain generate an electric field which can inadvertently affect the behaviour of some nanomaterials. Molecular dynamics simulations can mitigate the development phase of nanomaterials as well as prevent neural toxicity of nanomaterials following in vivo clinical trials. Testing nanomaterials using molecular dynamics optimizes nano characteristics for therapeutic purposes by testing different environment conditions, nanomaterial shape fabrications, nanomaterial surface properties, etc without the need for in vivo experimentation. Flexibility in molecular dynamic simulations allows medical practitioners to personalise treatment. Nanoparticle related data from translational nanoinformatics links neurological patient specific data to predict treatment response.
Nano-Neurotechnology
The visualization of neuronal activity is of key importance in the study of neurology. Nano-imaging tools with nanoscale resolution help in these areas. These optical imaging tools are PALM and STORM which helps visualise nanoscale objects within cells. Pampaloni states that, so far, these imaging tools revealed the dynamic behaviour and organisation of the actin cytoskeleton inside the cells, which will assist in understanding how neurons probe their involvement during neuronal outgrowth and in response to injury, and how they differentiate axonal processes and characterisation of receptor clustering and stoichiometry at the plasma inside the synapses, which are critical for understanding how synapses respond to changes in neuronal activity. These past works focused on devices for stimulation or inhibition of neural activity, but the crucial aspect is the ability for the device to simultaneously monitor neural activity. The major aspect that is to be improved in the nano imaging tools is the effective collection of the light as a major problem is that biological tissue are dispersive media that do not allow a straightforward propagation and control of light. These devices use nanoneedle and nanowire (NWs) for probing and stimulation.
NWs are artificial nano- or micro-sized “needles” that can provide high-fidelity electrophysiological recordings if used as microscopic electrodes for neuronal recordings. NWs are an attractive as they are highly functional structures that offer unique electronic properties that are affected by biological/chemical species adsorbed on their surface; mostly the conductivity. This conductivity variance depending on chemical species present allows enhanced sensing performances. NWs are also able to act as non-invasive and highly local probes. These versatility of NWs makes it optimal for interfacing with neurons due to the fact that the contact length along the axon (or the dendrite projection crossing a NW) is just about 20 nm.
Neuroscience and Medicine
Neurology, psychiatry, neurosurgery, psychosurgery, anesthesiology and pain medicine, neuropathology, neuroradiology, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, clinical neurophysiology, addiction medicine, and sleep medicine are some medical specialties that specifically address the diseases of the nervous system. These terms also refer to clinical disciplines involving diagnosis and treatment of these diseases.
Neurology works with diseases of the central and peripheral nervous systems, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and stroke, and their medical treatment. Psychiatry focuses on affective, behavioural, cognitive, and perceptual disorders. Anaesthesiology focuses on perception of pain, and pharmacologic alteration of consciousness. Neuropathology focuses upon the classification and underlying pathogenic mechanisms of central and peripheral nervous system and muscle diseases, with an emphasis on morphologic, microscopic, and chemically observable alterations. Neurosurgery and psychosurgery work primarily with surgical treatment of diseases of the central and peripheral nervous systems.
Translational Research
Recently, the boundaries between various specialties have blurred, as they are all influenced by basic research in neuroscience. For example, brain imaging enables objective biological insight into mental illnesses, which can lead to faster diagnosis, more accurate prognosis, and improved monitoring of patient progress over time.
Integrative neuroscience describes the effort to combine models and information from multiple levels of research to develop a coherent model of the nervous system. For example, brain imaging coupled with physiological numerical models and theories of fundamental mechanisms may shed light on psychiatric disorders.
Nanoneuroscience
One of the main goals of nanoneuroscience is to gain a detailed understanding of how the nervous system operates and, thus, how neurons organise themselves in the brain. Consequently, creating drugs and devices that are able to cross the blood brain barrier (BBB) are essential to allow for detailed imaging and diagnoses. The blood brain barrier functions as a highly specialised semipermeable membrane surrounding the brain, preventing harmful molecules that may be dissolved in the circulation blood from entering the central nervous system.
The main two hurdles for drug-delivering molecules to access the brain are size (must have a molecular weight < 400 Da) and lipid solubility. Physicians hope to circumvent difficulties in accessing the central nervous system through viral gene therapy. This often involves direct injection into the patient’s brain or cerebral spinal fluid. The drawback of this therapy is that it is invasive and carries a high risk factor due to the necessity of surgery for the treatment to be administered. Because of this, only 3.6% of clinical trials in this field have progressed to stage III since the concept of gene therapy was developed in the 1980s.
Another proposed way to cross the BBB is through temporary intentional disruption of the barrier. This method was first inspired by certain pathological conditions that were discovered to break down this barrier by themselves, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, stroke, and seizure conditions.
Nanoparticles are unique from macromolecules because their surface properties are dependent on their size, allowing for strategic manipulation of these properties (or, “programming”) by scientists that would not be possible otherwise. Likewise, nanoparticle shape can also be varied to give a different set of characteristics based on the surface area to volume ratio of the particle.
Nanoparticles have promising therapeutic effects when treating neurodegenerative diseases. Oxygen reactive polymer (ORP) is a nano-platform programmed to react with oxygen and has been shown to detect and reduce the presence of reactive oxygen species (ROS) formed immediately after traumatic brain injuries. Nanoparticles have also been employed as a “neuroprotective” measure, as is the case with Alzheimer’s disease and stroke models. Alzheimer’s disease results in toxic aggregates of the amyloid beta protein formed in the brain. In one study, gold nanoparticles were programmed to attach themselves to these aggregates and were successful in breaking them up. Likewise, with ischemic stroke models, cells in the affected region of the brain undergo apoptosis, dramatically reducing blood flow to important parts of the brain and often resulting in death or severe mental and physical changes. Platinum nanoparticles have been shown to act as ROS, serving as “biological antioxidants” and significantly reducing oxidation in the brain as a result of stroke. Nanoparticles can also lead to neurotoxicity and cause permanent BBB damage either from brain oedema or from unrelated molecules crossing the BBB and causing brain damage. This proves further long term in vivo studies are needed to gain enough understanding to allow for successful clinical trials.
One of the most common nano-based drug delivery platforms is liposome-based delivery. They are both lipid-soluble and nano-scale and thus are permitted through a fully functioning BBB. Additionally, lipids themselves are biological molecules, making them highly biocompatible, which in turn lowers the risk of cell toxicity. The bilayer that is formed allows the molecule to fully encapsulate any drug, protecting it while it is travelling through the body. One drawback to shielding the drug from the outside cells is that it no longer has specificity, and requires coupling to extra antibodies to be able to target a biological site. Due to their low stability, liposome-based nanoparticles for drug delivery have a short shelf life.
Targeted therapy using magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) is also a popular topic of research and has led to several stage III clinical trials. Invasiveness is not an issue here because a magnetic force can be applied from the outside of a patient’s body to interact and direct the MNPs. This strategy has been proven successful in delivering Brain-derived neurotropic factor, a naturally occurring gene thought to promote neurorehabilitation, across the BBB.
Major Branches
Modern neuroscience education and research activities can be very roughly categorised into the following major branches, based on the subject and scale of the system in examination as well as distinct experimental or curricular approaches. Individual neuroscientists, however, often work on questions that span several distinct subfields.
Branch
Description
Affective Neuroscience
Affective neuroscience is the study of the neural mechanisms involved in emotion, typically through experimentation on animal models.
Behavioural Neuroscience
Behavioural neuroscience (also known as biological psychology, physiological psychology, biopsychology, or psychobiology) is the application of the principles of biology to the study of genetic, physiological, and developmental mechanisms of behaviour in humans and non-human animals.
Cellular Neuroscience
Cellular neuroscience is the study of neurons at a cellular level including morphology and physiological properties.
Clinical Neuroscience
The scientific study of the biological mechanisms that underlie the disorders and diseases of the nervous system.
Cognitive Neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience is the study of the biological mechanisms underlying cognition.
Computational Neuroscience
Computational neuroscience is the theoretical study of the nervous system.
Cultural Neuroscience
Cultural neuroscience is the study of how cultural values, practices and beliefs shape and are shaped by the mind, brain and genes across multiple timescales.
Developmental Neuroscience
Developmental neuroscience studies the processes that generate, shape, and reshape the nervous system and seeks to describe the cellular basis of neural development to address underlying mechanisms.
Evolutionary Neuroscience
Evolutionary neuroscience studies the evolution of nervous systems.
Molecular Neuroscience
Molecular neuroscience studies the nervous system with molecular biology, molecular genetics, protein chemistry, and related methodologies.
Neural Neuroscience
Neural engineering uses engineering techniques to interact with, understand, repair, replace, or enhance neural systems.
Neuroanatomy
Neuroanatomy is the study of the anatomy of nervous systems.
Neurochemistry
Neurochemistry is the study of how neurochemicals interact and influence the function of neurons.
Neuroethology
Neuroethology is the study of the neural basis of non-human animals behaviour.
Neurogastronomy
Neurogastronomy is the study of flavour and how it affects sensation, cognition, and memory.
Neurogenetics
Neurogenetics is the study of the genetical basis of the development and function of the nervous system.
Neuroimaging
Neuroimaging includes the use of various techniques to either directly or indirectly image the structure and function of the brain.
Neuroimmunology
Neuroimmunology is concerned with the interactions between the nervous and the immune system.
Neuroinformatics
Neuroinformatics is a discipline within bioinformatics that conducts the organisation of neuroscience data and application of computational models and analytical tools.
Neurolinguistics
Neurolinguistics is the study of the neural mechanisms in the human brain that control the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language.
Neurophysics
Neurophysics deals with the development of physical experimental tools to gain information about the brain.
Neurophysiology
Neurophysiology is the study of the functioning of the nervous system, generally using physiological techniques that include measurement and stimulation with electrodes or optically with ion- or voltage-sensitive dyes or light-sensitive channels.
Neuropsychology
Neuropsychology is a discipline that resides under the umbrellas of both psychology and neuroscience, and is involved in activities in the arenas of both basic science and applied science. In psychology, it is most closely associated with biopsychology, clinical psychology, cognitive psychology, and developmental psychology. In neuroscience, it is most closely associated with the cognitive, behavioural, social, and affective neuroscience areas. In the applied and medical domain, it is related to neurology and psychiatry.
Paleoneurobiology
Paleoneurobiology is a field which combines techniques used in palaeontology and archaeology to study brain evolution, especially that of the human brain.
Social Neuroscience
Social neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behaviour, and to using biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social processes and behaviour.
Systems Neuroscience
Systems neuroscience is the study of the function of neural circuits and systems.
Neuroscience Organisations
The largest professional neuroscience organisation is the Society for Neuroscience (SFN), which is based in the United States but includes many members from other countries. Since its founding in 1969 the SFN has grown steadily: as of 2010 it recorded 40,290 members from 83 different countries. Annual meetings, held each year in a different American city, draw attendance from researchers, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduates, as well as educational institutions, funding agencies, publishers, and hundreds of businesses that supply products used in research.
Other major organisations devoted to neuroscience include the International Brain Research Organisation (IBRO), which holds its meetings in a country from a different part of the world each year, and the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS), which holds a meeting in a different European city every two years. FENS comprises a set of 32 national-level organisations, including the British Neuroscience Association, the German Neuroscience Society (Neurowissenschaftliche Gesellschaft), and the French Société des Neurosciences. The first National Honour Society in Neuroscience, Nu Rho Psi, was founded in 2006. Numerous youth neuroscience societies which support undergraduates, graduates and early career researchers also exist, like Project Encephalon.
In 2013, the BRAIN Initiative was announced in the US. An International Brain Initiative was created in 2017, currently integrated by more than seven national-level brain research initiatives (US, Europe, Allen Institute, Japan, China, Australia, Canada, Korea, Israel) spanning four continents.
Public Education and Outreach
In addition to conducting traditional research in laboratory settings, neuroscientists have also been involved in the promotion of awareness and knowledge about the nervous system among the general public and government officials. Such promotions have been done by both individual neuroscientists and large organisations. For example, individual neuroscientists have promoted neuroscience education among young students by organising the International Brain Bee, which is an academic competition for high school or secondary school students worldwide. In the United States, large organisations such as the Society for Neuroscience have promoted neuroscience education by developing a primer called Brain Facts, collaborating with public school teachers to develop Neuroscience Core Concepts for K-12 teachers and students, and cosponsoring a campaign with the Dana Foundation called Brain Awareness Week to increase public awareness about the progress and benefits of brain research. In Canada, the CIHR Canadian National Brain Bee is held annually at McMaster University.
Neuroscience educators formed Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (FUN) in 1992 to share best practices and provide travel awards for undergraduates presenting at Society for Neuroscience meetings.
Finally, neuroscientists have also collaborated with other education experts to study and refine educational techniques to optimise learning among students, an emerging field called educational neuroscience. Federal agencies in the United States, such as the National Institute of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF), have also funded research that pertains to best practices in teaching and learning of neuroscience concepts.
1825 – Jean-Martin Charcot, French neurologist and psychologist (d. 1893).
1945 – Csaba Pléh, Hungarian psychologist and linguist.
Jean-Martin Charcot
Jean-Martin Charcot (29 November 1825 to 16 August 1893) was a French neurologist and professor of anatomical pathology.
He is best known today for his work on hypnosis and hysteria, in particular his work with his hysteria patient Louise Augustine Gleizes.
Charcot is known as “the founder of modern neurology”, and his name has been associated with at least 15 medical eponyms, including Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease and Charcot disease.
Charcot has been referred to as “the father of French neurology and one of the world’s pioneers of neurology” His work greatly influenced the developing fields of neurology and psychology; modern psychiatry owes much to the work of Charcot and his direct followers.
He was the “foremost neurologist of late nineteenth-century France” and has been called “the Napoleon of the neuroses”.
Csaba Pleh
Csaba Pléh (born 29 November 1945) is a Hungarian psychologist and linguist, professor at the Department of Cognitive Science, Budapest University of Technology and Economics.
He graduated from the Eötvös Loránd University where he earned his degrees in psychology (1969) and linguistics (1973). In 1970 he received his PhD in psychology. He became Candidate of Psychological Science in 1984 and Doctor of Psychological Science in 1997. He obtained his habilitation in 1998. He became a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences is 1998, a full member in 2004.
1929 – Eric Kandel, Austrian-American neuroscientist and psychiatrist, Nobel Prize laureate.
Eric Kandel
Eric Richard Kandel (German: [ˈkandəl]; born Erich Richard Kandel, 07 November 1929) is an Austrian-American medical doctor who specialised in psychiatry, a neuroscientist and a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University.
He was a recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on the physiological basis of memory storage in neurons. He shared the prize with Arvid Carlsson and Paul Greengard.
He is a Senior Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He was also the founding director of the Centre for Neurobiology and Behaviour, which is now the Department of Neuroscience at Columbia University. He currently serves on the Scientific Council of the Brain & Behaviour Research Foundation. Kandel’s popularised account chronicling his life and research, In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind, was awarded the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology.
The Science and Practice of Wellness: Interventions for Happiness, Enthusiasm, Resilience, and Optimism (HERO).
Author(s): Rakesh Jain and Saundra Jain.
Year: 2020.
Edition: First (1st).
Publisher: W.W. Norton Company.
Type(s): Hardcover.
Synopsis:
Wellness is rapidly becoming an issue of great importance in clinical practice. Wellness-centric clinicians look to improve various traits known to be beneficial to patients – traits such as happiness, enthusiasm, resilience, and optimism (referred to as the HERO traits). All of these not only improve global mental wellness, but also offer resilience against stress, depression, and anxiety. Wellness-centric interventions augment both psychopharmacology and traditional psychotherapies, such as CBT.
Rakesh and Saundra Jain start with an in- depth review of the scientific literature and a practical introduction on applying wellness interventions in various clinical settings. Additionally, they offer advice on such beneficial practices as exercise, mindfulness, optimised nutrition, optimized sleep, enhanced socialisation, and positive psychology enhancement. A robust resource section offers access to wellness-centric scales and forms developed by the authors.
Resilience – How We Find New Strength At Times of Stress.
Author(s): Frederic Flach, MD.
Year: 2020.
Edition: Third (3rd).
Publisher: Ballantine Books.
Type(s): Hardcover, Paperback, and Kindle.
Synopsis:
Learn to bounce back from life’s inevitable crises by making friends with stress. There’s no escaping stress. It appears on our doorstep uninvited in the shattering forms of death and divorce, or even in the pleasant experiences of promotion, marriage, or a long-held wish fulfilled. Anything that upsets the delicate balance of our daily lives creates stress.
So why do some people come out of a crisis while others never seem quite themselves again? Now, Dr. Frederic Flach takes the anxiety out of hard times by showing you how to embrace you fears and become stronger because of them. Drawing on over thirty years of experience, Flach reveals the remarkable antidote to the destructive qualities of stress: RESILIENCE.
Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain – How to Retrain Your Brain to Overcome Pessimism and Achieve a More Positive Outlook.
Author(s): Elaine Fox.
Year: 2012.
Edition: First (1st).
Publisher: Baisc Books.
Type(s): Hardcover, Paperback, and Audiobook, and Kindle.
Synopsis:
Are you optimistic or pessimistic? Glass half-full or half-empty? Do you look on the bright side or turn towards the dark? These are easy questions for most of us to answer, because our personality types are hard-wired into our brains. As pioneering psychologist and neuroscientist Elaine Fox has discovered, our outlook on life reflects our primal inclination to seek pleasure or avoid danger – inclinations that, in many people, are healthily balanced. But when our “fear brain” or “pleasure brain” is too strong, the results can be disastrous, as those of us suffering from debilitating shyness, addiction, depression, or anxiety know all too well.
Luckily, anyone suffering from these afflictions has reason to hope. Stunning breakthroughs in neuroscience show that our brains are more malleable than we ever imagined. In Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain, Fox describes a range of techniques – from traditional cognitive behavioural therapy to innovative cognitive-retraining exercises – that can actually alter our brains’ circuitry, strengthening specific thought processes by exercising the neural systems that control them. The implications are enormous: lifelong pessimists can train themselves to think positively and find happiness, while pleasure-seekers inclined toward risky or destructive behavior can take control of their lives.
Drawing on her own cutting-edge research, Fox shows how we can retrain our brains to brighten our lives and learn to flourish. With keen insights into how genes, life experiences and cognitive processes interleave together to make us who we are, Rainy Brain, SunnyBrain revolutionizes our basic concept of individuality. We learn that we can influence our own personalities, and that our lives are only as “sunny” or as “rainy” as we allow them to be.
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