Principles of Neural Science
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水如歌2024-01-09In sensory cells, the membrane potential changes in response tominute physical stimuli: Receptors in the eye respond to a single photon of light; olfactory neurons detect asingle molecule of odorant; and hair cells in the inner ear respond to tiny movements of atomic dimensions. These sensory responses ultimately lead to the firing of an action potential during which the membrane potential changes at up to 500 volts per second.
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70862023-11-06The holistic view was seriously challenged, however, in the mid-19th century by the French neurologist Paul Pierre Broca, the German neurologist Carl Wernicke, and the British neurologist Hughlings Jackson. For example, in his studies of focal epilepsy, a disease characterized by convulsions that begin in aparticular part of the body, Jackson showed that different motor and sensory functions could be traced to specific parts of the cerebral cortex. The regional studies of Broca, Wernicke, and Jackson were extended to the cellular level by Charles Sherrington and by
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70862023-11-06Neural science must continually confront certain fundamental questions. Is a particular mental process carried out in specific regions of the brain, or does it involve the brain as a whole? If a mental process can be localized to discrete brain regions, what is the relationship between the functions of those regions in perception, movement, or thought and the anatomy and physiology of those regions?Are these relationships more likely to be understood by examining each region as a whole or by studying individual nerve cells?
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70862023-11-06THE LAST FRONTIER OF THE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES–the ultimate challenge–is to understand the biological basis of consciousness and the brain processes by which we feel, act, learn, and remember. During the past few decades, a remarkable unification within the biological sciences has set the stage for addressing this great challenge. The ability to sequence genes and infer the amino acid sequences of the proteins they encode has revealed unanticipated similarities between proteins in the nervous system and those encountered elsewhere in the body. As a result, it has become possible to establish a general plan for the function of cells, a plan that provides a common conceptual framework for all of cell biology, including cellular neural science. The current challenge in the unification within bi...