Computational Models for Neuroscience – Human Cortical Information Processing
Computational Models for Neuroscience – Human Cortical Information Processing
Robert Hecht-Nielsen and Thomas McKenna (Eds)Springer-VerlagLondon, Berlin, Heidelberg2003ISBN 1-85233-593-9i-xix+299 pp.Hardcover, Eur 89.95:SFR 149.50:GBP 55.00 US $ 99.00 (The Euro price is the net price, subject to local VAT)
The editors of this book, Drs Hecht-Niesen and McKenna are from HCN Software Inc., San Diego, CA, USA and the Office of Naval Research, Arlington, VA, USA,respectively. They have provided a Preface in which they explained their view on the formal study of neuroscience and the specific purposes of their book. They say that:
Amongst neuroscientists, there is a general anticipation that somebody (not soon) will fit enough pieces of the puzzle together to discern a key concept that will trigger rapid and sustained progress in assembling the rest of the existing pieces and discovering the still missing pieces. The purpose of this book is to try to hurry this timetable by describing several different conceptual frameworks that indicate how some of the pieces of the neuroscience puzzle may fit together.
The book has been written to inspire readers to create this "trigger concept". The book's aim are indeed laudable. But, will they achieve these goals? In this field, it is very much a matter of labouring away, at attempting to understand and analyse what we know and there is no doubt that this text helps us to identify key concepts, because the information included in the contributions by some of our leading experts provide new and stimulating overviews. These indicate perhaps, where we should be looking for some of the pieces of the neuroscience puzzle.
The invited authors and the editors, who also provide contributions, have their papers published in chapters that are organised alphabetically by author name. This immediately suggests that there is no intention by the editors to provide any sort of continuity in the text. I see no reason for this, unless precedence is more important than content.
Even so, treating each chapter as an entity is acceptable, because many contributions are not linked with each other and there is no discernible attempt at an integrated approach to the task of solving the puzzle of this science.
The editors are also reluctant to tell us in any sort of final summary, what they think of the claims of their participating authors. Each author is left to claim their own place in the "big picture" that the editors ambitiously,introduced in their preface.
Each of the chapters, however, in its own right, contain a great deal of information that has been compiled by an expert. Each chapter could, therefore,be a book in itself and I have no hesitation in listing their titles, if not,for reasons of space, naming the individual contributor. They are as follows.
– The NeuroInteractive Paradigm: Dynamical Mechanics and the Emergence of Higher Cortical Function. – The Cortical Pyramidal Cell as a Set of Interacting Error Backpropagating Dendrites: Mechanism for Discovering Nature's Order – Performance of Intelligence Systems Governed by Internally Generated Goals – A Theory of Thalamocortex – Elementary Principles of Non-Linear Synaptic Transmission. – The Development of Cortical Models of Enable Neural-Based Cognitive Architectures – The Behaving Human Neocortex as a Dynamic Network of Networks – Towards Global Principles of Brain Processing – The Neural Networks for Language in the Brain: Creating LAD – Cortical Belief Networks Index.
As to whether the book can be recommended, there is no question that the information on computational models for neuroscience and the detail about human cortical information processing makes it a necessary book for anyone involved in the field, either in its research or in following a formal course in neuroscience. Some of the chapters will be of special interest to cyberneticians and systemists who will be interested in the human brain and the various approaches now being taken in the study of neuroscience.
D.M. Hutton
