Product Description

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

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #104845 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 464 pages

Review
The book is a "must read" for anyone interested in understanding the functioning of large and complex brain circuits. (Nature, Vol 446, )

This wonderful book seamlessly cycles between experimental results and theoretical concepts. It begins with an introduction to many topics related to brain rhythms, such as neuronal anatomy, physiology and the physics of self-organised systems...[it's] a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the functioning of large and complex brain circuits. (Nature, Vol 446 )

About the Author
György Buzsáki is a Board of Governors Professor of Neuroscience at Rutgers University. His primary research interests are in brain oscillations, sleep and memory, and with more than 200 papers published on these topics, he is among the top 250 most-cited neuroscientists. Dr. Buzsáki is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and he sits on the editorial boards of several leading
neuroscience journals.

Customer Reviews

The Importance of Brain Waves
For the lay reader, Buzsaki presents a new view of the brain that concentrates on oscillations generated within the brain. This moves us on from the normal texbook emphasis on neurons and synapses. The oscillations are related to processes of self-organisation, and the amplifying or dampening of feedback loops. The book explains the balance achieved between the excitatory function of the pyramidal cells and the neurotransmitter glutamate and the inhibitory function of the interneurons and the neurotransmitter GABA. Sleep and circadian rhythms are also discussed.

The lack of much discussion of consciousness may come as a disappointment to some readers interested in this aspect of the mind, and is perhaps surprising given that many have viewed the 40Hz gamma oscillation as one of the clearest correlates of consciousness.

Rhythms of the Brain - a tour de force
Rhythms of the Brain
Professor Buzsáki has written an excellent, scholarly book on brain oscillations, his speciality. The work is dense but very readable and is all the better for being by a single author rather than an edited collection of review articles. Appropriately, the book is divided into 13 cycles rather than chapters and each cycle ends with a brief and useful summary. He combines ideas from the neurosciences with those from chaos theory and non-linear dynamics, pointing out in the introduction (p13) that "complexity can be formally defined as nonlinearity and from nonlinear equations, unexpected solutions emerge". Put simply complex behaviour of a dynamic system such as the brain cannot be predicted from the behaviour of individual neurones or small neuronal ensembles.

Professor Buzsáki promotes the view that the inside-our approach to neuroscience enhances our understanding of relatively unperturbed brain states because "self-generated behaviour and emergent large-scale oscillations tend to occur in the unperturbed brain". In the introductory cycle he argues that during exploration of the brain, experimental perturbation of network interactions and emergent functions will yield hints of causality. He then successfully adopts this approach for much of the rest of the book. In cycles 2 and 3 Professor Buzsáki discusses form and function, indicating that preferentially connected areas of the cortex form the basis of higher order cortical systems, e.g. for movement and/or vision. He points out that the diversity of cortical functions can only be achieved by inhibition and by complex networks of interneurones offering the basis for temporal coordination, often accomplished by oscillations. In Cycle 4 (Windows on the Brain), he outlines the currently available monitoring techniques most frequently used to investigate the oscillatory behaviour of neuronal networks, including EEG, positron emission tomography, optical imaging, recordings from single neurones, and high density recordings with silicon probes.

Professor Buzsáki's fundamental argument is that most of the brain's activity is generated from within and that external inputs cause only minor departures from its internal programme. Thus the brain "does not simply process information but also generates information", observable in the EEG as a blend of rhythms unable to phase-lock with each other because their mean frequencies are not integers. These oscillations are metastable and result from the physical architecture of neuronal networks (cycle 5). In cycle 6 he discusses synchronization by oscillation based on self-organized interactions among neurones, which he argues may be the source of cognitive function. Cycle 7 discusses the self-organized oscillatory rhythms connected with rest and sleep - the default pattern of the brain in the absence of environmental inputs. In cycle 8 the perturbation of various default patterns by experience is explored and it is shown that sensory representations in the brain acquire real-world metrics early in development by first acquiring information about the three-dimensional nature of the skeletal muscle system. Cycle 9 considers the "Gamma Buzz" in the waking, activated cortex through which neuronal assemblies organize themselves into "temporal packages" lasting 15-30 ms which may be involved in perceptual binding of object features. Buzsáki then goes on to show that perceptions and actions are brain-state dependent (cycle 10), which adds to his argument that a given environmental perturbation leads to modification of "a perpetually evolving network pattern in the brain's landscape". Cycle 11 talks of navigation in real and memory space and how the hippocampus is the search engine for the retrieval of archived information with theta oscillations related to episodic and semantic memory, path integration and "map-based"/landmark navigation. Further transient oscillations are used to transfer this information to the neocortex, when cortical assemblies are transiently entrained to the theta rhythm (cycle 12). The final cycle investigates the relationship between structural connectivity and global function.

It is difficult to do justice to Professor Buzsáki's tour de force in a short review. I can only recommend that those with an interest in the neuroscience should read and learn from it.

Brain Waves
Dr Buszaki has spent a lifetime studying the oscillations in the brain, and this book shows his love of the science, and depth of knowledge.

It's not for the faint hearted (I haven't finished reading it all yet) but is surprisingly readable for such a deep topic.