The Neurosciences Institute Publications
4 total works
What constitutes a meaningful signal for an organism in its ecological niche? This book considers this question with regard to how the structure and function of the nervous system allows perceptual categorization to occur. It addresses the overall theme under a variety of subtopics, including the recognition of biologically significant stimuli in the environment, the principles guiding development of patterns of anatomical and functional activity within the nervous system, and brain mechanisms in language. Theoretical as well as experimental approaches to understanding these subjects are included and the contributors represent disciplines ranging from psychology to cell biology.
This volume reviews the cellular and morphogenetic effects of the expression of adhesion molecules. Its chapters summarize the progress made in our understanding of the structure, function and genetic control of the three families of molecules involved in adhesion - cell adhesion molecules (CAMs), substrate adhesion molecules (SAMs) and cell junctional molecules (CJMs). The text will benefit cell and molecular biologists.
This book consists of five sections. The first section details methods for analyzing both presynaptic and postsynaptic function and emphasizes the molecular aspects of synapses. It describes ongoing studies of neurotransmitter realease, voltage-sensitive ion channels, and electronic transmission at gap junctions. The second section focuses on the growing menagerie of neurotransmitters: their categorization into chemical families, their relation to ion channels, their modulation by second messenger systems and their role in pharmacologic action. The third section considers the important relationship of transmitter diversity and synaptic types to the behavior of actual cellular networks. The central role of synapses in learning and memory is the subject of the fourth section of the book. The fifth and final section includes modeling studies of the single dendrite as well as novel analyses of synapses in networks.