Foundations of Neural Development
Published on 1. February 2017
Book
Hardback
380 pages
978-1-60535-579-5 (ISBN)
Description
Foundations of Neural Development is an accessible textbook, written with a conversational style and topics appropriate for an undergraduate audience. Each chapter begins with a thought-provoking vignette, or a real-life story, that the subsequent material illuminates.
The "Researchers at Work" feature, available in every chapter, describes a classic study in detail, taking the reader through the hypothesis, test, result, and conclusion of an experiment. Other features include a marginal glossary, review questions, and bulleted summary in each chapter.
Chapters 1-7 unfold in the order of ontogeny, covering induction, the establishment of a body plan, neural migration, differentiation, axonal pathfinding, synapse formation, and apoptosis. Chapters 8-10 address activity-guided, experience-guided, and socially guided neural development-mechanisms that were crucial for the evolution of the human brain.Lively and engaging, with the finest illustrations, this is the perfect book to help any undergraduate student understand how a single microscopic cell, a human zygote, can develop into the most complex machine on earth, the brain.
More details
Person
S. Marc Breedlove, the Barnett Rosenberg Professor of Neuroscience at Michigan State University, has written over 130 scientific articles investigating the role of hormones in shaping the developing and adult nervous system, publishing in journals including Science, Nature, Nature Neuroscience, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
He is also passionate about teaching-in the classroom, and in the greater community through interviews with the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Newsweek, as well as broadcast programs such as All Things Considered, Good Morning America, and Sixty Minutes.
He is also passionate about teaching-in the classroom, and in the greater community through interviews with the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Newsweek, as well as broadcast programs such as All Things Considered, Good Morning America, and Sixty Minutes.
Content
Prologue: The Rationalist Philosophers. 1. The Metazoans' Dilemma: Cell Differentiation and Neural Induction.- 2. Coordinating Fates: Development of a Body Pattern.- 3. Upward Mobility: Neurogenesis and Migration.- 4. Seeking Identity: Neural Differentiation.- 5. Feeling One's Way: Axonal Pathfinding.- 6. Making Connections: Synapse Formation and Maturation.- 7. Accepting Mortality: Apoptosis.- 8. Synaptic Plasticity: Activity-Guided Neural Development.- 9. Fine-Tuning Sensory Systems: Activity-Guided Neural Development.- 10. Maximizing Fitness: Socially Guided Neural Development.- Epilogue: Immanuel Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason.