Part I: The Basics
1. Introduction
- Starting Out: A Spark of Awe in the Darkness
Who Are We?
In Pursuit of Principles
How We Know What We Know
Thinking Critically about the Brain
The Big Questions in Cognitive Neuroscience
The Payoffs of Cognitive
Neuroscience
2. The Brain and Nervous System
- Starting Out: The Brains of Creatures Great and Small
An Overview of the Nervous System
The Peripheral Nervous System
The Spinal Cord
The Brainstem
The Cerebellum
The Diencephalon: Hypothalamus and Thalamus
3. Neurons
and Synapses
- Starting Out: The Kabuki Actor and the Pufferfish
The Cells of the Brain
Synaptic Transmission: Chemical Signaling in the Brain
Spikes: Electrical Signaling in the Brain
Individuals and Populations
4. Neuroplasticity
- Starting Out: The Child with Half a
Brain
The Brain Dynamically Reorganizes to Match Its Inputs
The Brain Distributes Resources Based on Relevance
A Sensitive Period for Plastic Changes
Hardwiring versus World Experience
The Mechanics of Reorganization
Changing the Input Channels
Part II: How the Brain
Interacts with the World
5. Vision
- Starting Out: Vision Is More Than the Eyes
Visual Perception
Anatomy of the Visual System
Higher Visual Areas
Perception is Active, Not Passive
Vision Relies on Expectations
6. Other Senses
- Starting Out: The Man with the
Bionic Ear
Directing Data from the World
The Somatosensory System
Chemical Senses
The Brain is Multisensory
7. The Motor System
- Starting Out: "Locked-In Syndrome"
Muscles
The Spinal Cord
The Cerebellum
The Motor Cortex
The Prefrontal Cortex: Goals to
Strategies to Tactics to Actions
Basal Ganglia
Medial and Lateral Motor Systems: Internally and Externally Guided Movement Control
Part III: Higher Levels of Interaction
8. Attention and Consciousness
- Starting Out: The Stream of Consciousness
Awareness Requires
Attention
Approaches to Studying Attention and Awareness
Neural Mechanisms of Attention and Awareness
Sites of Attentional Modulation: Neurons and Neural Populations
Synchronization, Attention, and Awareness Coma and Vegitative State: Anatomy of the Conscious State
Anesthesia and
Sleep: Rhythms of Consciousness
Theories of Consciousness
9. Memory
- Starting Out: "The Woman Who Cannot Forget"
The Many Kinds of Memory
Travels in Space and Time: The Hippocampus and Temporal Lobe
Remembering the Future: Prospection and Imagination
The Confabulation of
Reality
The Mechanisms of Memory
Beyond Synaptic Plasticity: The Frontiers of Memory Mechanisms
The Mysteries of Memory
10. Sleep
- Starting Out: Caught between Sleeping and Waking
Sleep and the Brain
The Circadian Rhythm
Why Do Brains Sleep?
Dreaming
Sleep
Deprivation and Disorders
11. Language and Lateralization
- Starting Out: The Stuttering King
Speech, Language, and Communication Aphasia: The Loss
A Language Network
Lateralization: The Two Hemispheres Are Not Identical
Development of Language
Part IV: Motivated
Behaviors
12. Decision Making
- Starting Out: A Fatal Mistake, at the Highest Place on Earth
How Do We Decide What to Do?
The Predictably Irrational Homo sapiens
Where Do Our Irrational Decisions Come From?
How the Brain Decides
The Common Currency of Subjective
Value
A Hierarchy of Internally Guided Decision Making
Modulators of Decision Making
13. Emotions
- Starting Out: Sadness, at the Flip of a Switch
Early Theories of Emotion
Core Limbic Structures: Amygdala and Hypothalamus
The Limbic Cortex and Emotions
Neurochemical
Influences on Emotion
14. Motivation and Reward
- Starting Out: "More Important Than Survival Itself"
Motivation and Survival
The Circuitry of Motivation: Basic Drives
Reward, Learning, and the Brain
Opioids and the Sensation of Pleasure
Dopamine, Learning, Motivation,
and Reward
Addiction: Pathological Learning and Motivation
Unlearning Addiction
15. Social Cognition
- Starting Out: Why Risk Your Life for a Yellow T-shirt?
Social Perception
Social Thinking: Theory of Mind
Social Feelings: Empathy and Its Many Components
Social
Emotions, Motivations, and Behavior
Neurotransmitters and Social Behavior
The Social Self
Part V: Disorders of Brain and Behavior
16. Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders
- Starting Out: Epilepsy: "The Sacred Disease"
Alzheimer's Disease: Burning Out with
Age?
Frontotemporal Dementia: Like a Cancer of the Soul
Huntington's Disease: A Genetic Rarity, in Two Senses
Tourette Syndrome: A Case of Involunatry Volition?
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Neurological or Psychiatric?
Schizophrenia: A Dementia of the Young
Bipolar
Disorder
Depression: A Global Burden
Companion Website
Instructor's Manual:
- PowerPoint slides
- Test bank
- Oxford Neuroscience Animation Library
Student Resources:
- Chapter Outlines
- Animations
- Flashcards
-
Practice quizzes
- Glossary
E-Book (ISBN 9780190614232)
David Eagleman is a neuroscientist, New York Times best-selling author, and Guggenheim Fellow who holds joint appointments in the Departments of Neuroscience and Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Dr. Eagleman's areas of research include time perception, vision,
synesthesia, and the intersection of neuroscience with the legal system.
Jonathan Downar is the director of the MRI-Guided rTMS Clinic at the University Health Network Hospital in Toronto, Canada, and a scientist at the Toronto Western Research Institute. He currently holds appointments
with the Department of Psychiatry and the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto.
Biological Psychology - Kelly G. Lambert
Neurobiology - Georg F. Striedter
Basic Vision - Robert Snowden, Peter Thompson and Tom Troscianko
Behavioral Neurobiology - Gunther K. H. Zupanc