Highly recommended by Jeff Hawkins who is interviewed in Episode 38 of the Brain Science Podcast, which is available at http://brainsciencepodcast.com/.

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Product Description

The cerebral cortex, occupying over 70 percent of our brain mass, is key to any understanding of the workings--and disorders--of the human brain. offering a comprehensive account of the role of the cerebral cortex in perception, this monumental work by one of the world's greatest living neuroscientists does nothing short of creating a new subdiscipline in the field: perceptual neuroscience.

For this undertaking, Vernon Mountcastle has gathered information from a vast number of sources reaching back through two centuries of investigation into the intrinsic operations of the cortex. His survey includes phylogenetic, comparative, and neuroanatomical studies of the neocortex; studies of the large-scale organization of the neocortex, of neuronal histogenesis and the specification of cortical areas, of synaptic transmission between neurons in cortical microcircuits, and of rhythmicity and synchronization in neocortical networks; and inquiries into the binding problem--how activities among the separate processing nodes of distributed systems coalesce in a coherent activity that we call perception.

The first book to summarize what is known about the physiology of the cortex in perception, Perceptual Neuroscience will be a landmark in the literature of neuroscience.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1196094 in Books
• Published on: 1998-12-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 512 pages

Review
Perceptual Neuroscience is a superb, if rather selective, survey of the phylogeny, ontogeny, anatomy, physiology, and organization of the cerebral cortex. Emphasizing the role of the cortex in perceptual processing, this well-written, well-produced volume draws on over 1100 citations. What is particularly valuable about this book is the insights it provides into the thinking of one of our most active senior neuroscientists.
--Charles Gross (Nature Neuroscience )

Erudite, encyclopedic, a fascinating overview by a founder and major contributor to the field.
--Michael V.L. Bennett, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Vernon Mountcastle's contributions to brain science are singular. Over the years he has tackled only the toughest problems and brought us understanding of the basic cortical unit involved in computational processes underlying perception, and for that matter probably all cognitive functions. He now brings us a lucid summary of what is known about the neural basis of perception in a beautifully written and wonderfully illustrated work. It will be the benchmark book well into the next century.
--Michael Gazzaniga, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Dartmouth College

This is a remarkable book by one of the most distinguished of modern neurophysiologists. It presents in a very clear light material that forms the foundations of neurophysiology but which rarely appears in textbooks today. This book will be of enormous value to all neuroscientists.
--Edward G. Jones, President-Elect, Society for Neuroscience, and Director, Center for Neuroscience, University of California, Davis

While I welcomed the advent of 'cognitive neuroscience', a lot of cognitive neuroscience is perceptual neuroscience. This is a topic we know a lot about from years of research. I can think of no better person to write about this topic than Vernon Mountcastle. Everything I expected is in this volume, and more. The topics are those that I want my students to know. While the basics are clearly presented, we also are treated to the important conceptual advances of Mountcastle himself. The style is bold and the text is informative. No other text covers the topic of the cerebral cortex so well.
--Jon H. Kaas, Centennial Professor, Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University

It takes a certain audacity to make the leap from mundane physiology and anatomy to perception, but no one is better qualified than Professor Mountcastle to make that leap. This book will be a rich resource for those of us who view the cerebral cortex at an integrative systems level. A particular strength of the book is its quantitative approach. There is little or no computational heavy lifting, but there is a consistent effort to back up description and assertion with numbers. This is a work that that sparks the creative imagination.
--John C. Middlebrooks, Kresge Hearing Research Institute, University of Michigan

No practicing neuroscientist has devoted more time and energy to understanding the cerebral cortex than Vernon Mountcastle. Based on this wealth of experience, Mountcastle has now completed an authoritative synthesis that will be of great value to students and professionals alike.
--Dale Purves, Department of Neurobiology, Duke University

This book must surely be the definitive source on the structure and function of the mammalian neocortex, and it comes from an intrepid explorer. Vernon Mountcastle provided the first evidence for the columnar organization of the neocortex by making systematic recordings from single neurons in the somatosensory cortex, which was a tour de force for its time (mid-1950s). This was the first glimpse of the cell-wise modular organization of mammalian neocortex; cortical columns were later found to be the organizing principle not only for other sensory modalities, but also for the motor cortex. Neuroscientists of all stripes, as well as clinicians and advanced students, will welcome this vast and authoritative perspective from one of the authentic 'greats' of cellular neurophysiology.
--Ron Hoy, Cornell University

Vernon Mountcastle has written a magnificent overview of our present understanding of perception and the cerebral cortex. The book is exactly what we have come to expect from Mountcastle--thorough, precise and rigorous. The book will have a long shelf-life and be the 'bible' for generations of both students and researchers interested in cortical mechanisms.
--John E. Dowling, Harvard University

About the Author
Vernon B. Mountcastle, M.D. is University Professor of Neuroscience, Emeritus, at the Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute of The Johns Hopkins University and winner of the 1998 National Academy of Sciences Award in Neurosciences, in recognition of his "extraordinary contributions to progress in the fields of neuroscience."

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Customer Reviews

The 'where' and 'what', but still no 'how' of brain cortex
In his attempt to bring together the breadth of knowledge required for the determination of how brain cortical operations underlay perceptual experience, Mountcastle succeeds in providing a scholarly, if accessible volume of relevant material. It does not, however, include a systematic overview of our understanding of the cortex throughout the evolution of the neurosciences. Reading the book from cover to cover in chapter order may prove difficult for those lacking familiarity with the basic principles of neuroscience (cf: Kandel & Schwartz; Kuffler, Nicholls & Martin, for example), the general reader finding this to be a tome of high lexical density which requires an extensive neuropharmacological vocabulary. I would have organised the chapters somewhat differently, and/or cross-referenced chapters for content to help guide the more naive reader. Mountcastle provides no direct answer to the question of what the intrinsic function of the cortex is, but promotes its exploration from a dynamic systems stance, with a view to determining how "a distributed system highlights the dynamic neural representation of one, rather than another, sensory event". Prior to presenting the detailed microstructure of the cerebral cortical tissues, Mountcastle provides an extensive introduction to comparative brain morphology (perhaps unnecessarily long for this volume). Although a very appropriate context to have set in the light of the ontogenetic developmental chapters to come, much of the material contained in chapter 2 is better covered elsewhere (e.g., Pearce 1995; Dunbar, 1998). Chapter 6 finally introduces the reader to their first taste of the neural substrate dynamics core to this monograph's principal thesis. Using the hippocampus as an example of a region known in particular for its neural plasticity, the creation and maintenance of memorial processes (as thought to be effected through LTP and LTD mechanisms) are presented as correlating true causal relationships between identifiable synaptic changes over tine. A fine review is offered here (concise in historical, cytoarchitectonic and neurochemical details) together with a candidate cellular basis for the complex operations of the cortical tissues thought to be involved in learning, memory consolidation, the modulation of novel motor patterns - and - `perception itself' ? After some 300 pages, I find myself emmensly satisfied and now better informed concerning some of the `where' and `what' questions of perception and the structure of cortical tissues, but the `how' questions and the nature of the intrinsic operations of the neocortex remain unanswered. An excellent review of EEG history and the account of its physiological basis go no further. What does follow, however, are proposals for finer resolution, and thus enhanced cortical microcircuit functional correlates of cognitive activity, revolving around issues of synchronicity, rhythmicity and coherence, but no clear picture is offered as to how such a distributed neocortical system might generate the more `holistic' central representations of component stimulus features. A surprising ommision from his volume was any mention of the recent work involved with multi-electrode arrays (of which Mountcastle is such a staunch advocate in vivo) which grow nerve networks in electrodynamic culture media. Surely as valuable a contribution is to be made from this work as from those cited in the earlier molecular biology sections of his story as presented here. Whether the field will require a technological and/or paradigm-shift prior to solving the binding problem in perceptual neuroscience awaits future developments. As a compendium of the `what' and `where' of the mammalian, human cortex, this volume is essential reading - a potential review text for post-graduate teaching, and a good example of difficult material being successfully collated. I would have preferred a more coherent continuity between chapters (or better cross referencing between them - how was the author's original layout, I wonder ?) so facilitating the navigation of newcomers through this scholarly tour of a single brain region and its geomorphological terrain. For the neuroscience cogniscenti, this is a book of the kind many of us say that we were going to write, but never did. I am pleased that this text was written. More than simply a review, it nonetheless condenses a literature otherwise requiring the space of several boxes in the office. A valuable reference volume for research, teaching and laboratory shelves alike.

References:

Dickinson, A.R. (1997) Hierarchical Organisation in Serial Search Tasks by Cebus apella monkeys. Unpublished PhD Thesis. University of Edinburgh. Dunbar, R. (1998) Grooming, Gossip & the Evolution of Language ?

Insel T. (1999) MRI comparative stuff

Kandel & Schwartz; (Vars Eds) Principles of Neuroscience.

Kuffler, Nicholls & Martin (1985 ?) From Neuron to Brain.

Pearce (1995 ?) An Introduction to Animal Cognition. LEA

Perritt (St. Andrews) Pribram's (1971) Languages of the Brain Prentice-Kall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

Semendeferi et al., (2000) MRI different apes -

An excellent introduction to the cerebral cortex
Being a retinal physiologist, I have been studying this tiny bit of the brain for my whole career and have never had a chance to learn much about the rest of the central nervous system. This magnificent book by one of the leaders in cerebral cortex research is a godsend. Many aspects of the cerebral cortex are discussed, from the molecular level all the way to perception, and an interesting chapter on the evolution of the cortex is also included. What impresses me the most is how little is known (or at least WAS known back in around 1997, when this book was written) about the cortex, especially when compared to the retina. All the cortical cell types seem to have been identified. Many properties of individual cells are known (see Table 11-1), and their organization into horizontal layers and vertical minicolumns/columns is well established. All of these known facts are summarized nicely in this book. But what kinds of processing take place in the minicolumns? How are the various distributed systems combined to form perception? Not much is known about the former and even less about the latter, and for these topics Mountcastle has done a good job describing previous attempts to answer these questions as well as suggesting future directions which might lead to solutions.

However, I do have a few negative things to say. The writing is at times hard to follow. This is not because of the material, which is only slightly more advanced than Kandel et al. (2000) and other comparable undergraduate texts; rather, it is mainly due to the extreme precision of Mountcastle's writing, which sometimes results in seemingly awkward sentence structures. In addition, there are many terms which may be unfamiliar to students and non-specialists (e.g. retinal physiologists!), who are among this book's intended audience (see page xvii in the Preface). Though their definitions can be looked up on the internet fairly quickly, including a glossary appendix would be helpful. Thirdly, some of the figures are difficult to understand, because most of them are reprinted directly from the original papers and many symbols and experimental protocols are not explained adequately in the legends/text. However, the biggest (and very consistent) problem is that no references are provided for many important facts/experiments mentioned. One could argue that the references list is already very long (76 pages), but the margins are also needlessly wide and can be reduced by two inches easily, so that many more references could be added without making the book too thick.

Indespendible to the under/graduate student
A short review to say that Mountcastle's book is an excellent compendium of important research on the cortex from Meynert to the present. Stylistically the book should appeal to a wide audience; years of teaching medical students tends to make a professor exceedingly accessible (and jaded). Mountcastle's language is lucid and scholastic, and discoveries are always given within their historical framework. Electrophysiologists will gain the most from the book, but there is more than enough on human subjects to please the neuroimagist, and plenty of wetware information for the connectionist hackers as well. Excellent chapters on synpatic modulation, neuroanatomy, and rhythmicity and sychronization in neocortical networks.