Contends that the basic ethics governing our everyday lives can be traced directly to brain circuitry. This book explains an account of how specific brain signals induce us to consider our actions as if they were directed at ourselves - and subsequently lead us to treat others as we wish to be treated.
This concise, ground-breaking book expands past theories limited to the cerebral cortex and emphasizes the longitudinally-integrated brainstem systems that 'wake up the brain' from deep anesthesia, sleep and brain injury. For neurologists, neuroscientists, psychologists and psychiatrists, as well as readers interested in the workings of the brain.
This volume starts with an elementary introduction covering stem cell methodologies used to produce specific types of neurons, possibilities for their therapeutic use, and warnings of technical problems. In addition the authors report successes in achieving the derivation of a specific type of neuron. The dopamine neuron offers an important example and is discussed in more detail. Additional chapters cover problems obviously approachable with cells derived from stem cells, including their need in surgeries for pituitary cancers. The last chapter provides an overview of this particular field of research and presents a vision for its future directions.
In theoretical terms, sex differences in brains and behaviors of laboratory animals offer the possibility of fascinating scientific studies on a range of molecular phenomena such as genomic imprinting, DNA methylation, chromatin protein modification, non-coding DNA, potentially resulting in important neuroanatomical and neurochemical sex differences in the brain. Such sex differences could arise consequent to exposures to testosterone early in development, or to other effects deriving from the Y chromosome. However, this general subject has been treated with much hyperbole. Historically, sex differences were assumed to be present where they did not really exist, e. g. with respect to mathematics, executive leadership, etc. etc. Under what circumstances do we really care about sex differences in brain and behavior? These circumstances concern human maladies whose diagnoses are much different between boys and girls, or between women and men. Prominent examples discussed in this volume include autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorders and congenital adrenal hyperplasia. In fact, infant boys are more susceptible than infant girls to a variety of disorders that arise early in development. This volume then ends with a consideration of effects of estrogenic hormones on the injured brain, and their roles as protective agents.
Fundamental to cognition and emotional expression is the state of generalized arousal, and stress is clearly important for a variety of psychological and neurological illnesses. As our insights into the development of neural systems responsible for processing sensory stimuli, for generating specific motor responses and performing particular skills such as learning and memory continue to increase at a rapid pace, it is apparent that the development of those brain systems responsible for global states such as generalized CNS arousal, anxiety, stress, sexuality, mood and sleep have not received the attention they deserve. Furthermore, there is a need to understand how changes in these global states impact CNS development. Written by leading experts in these fields, this publication contains original articles and reviews to bring the reader up to date on global CNS states and brain development. The studies included in this issue use a broad range of techniques from noninvasive brain imaging to analyses of genetic and epigenetic mechanisms, reporting on findings from both experimental animals and human subjects. Offering unique insights into the current state and future directions of research on global CNS states, this publication will be a valuable resource for basic neuroscientists and neurologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians, psychologists, psychopharmacologists and many other professionals.
This book concentrates on two major topics: firstly, the molecular and neural biology of hormone actions relevant to normal social behaviors; and secondly, the clinical treatment of human patients in whom these behaviors have gone wrong.
The evolutionary approach presented in this book provides clues to the relevance of social interactions as part of the natural selection process, for the survival of species, including ours. Proceeding further, as science often does, from the simple to the complex, and taking advantage of the wide pluridisciplinary range of the participants a coming from fields as diverse as molecular neuroscience, anthropology and psychology a a final question was raised as to whether biological substrates of complex social behaviors may also be relevant to moral issues characteristic of humans beings (Hauser and Young 2008): for instance, information aiming at decision making is not processed by the brain in the same way, whether or not a given situation is perceived as involving moral dilemmas. In fact, it could be argued that human social behavior mechanisms do not constitute a simple extension of other central nervous system regulatory functions but instead represent and require a different level of analysis. Understanding how social patterns are controlled by the brain may yield new insights into the nature of consciousness: human conscious experience depends upon a person being embedded in a complex social environment. According to this view, rational, moral behavior is a natural product of the human mind operating in social contexts and having been selected for during the process of human evolution
Sind wir Menschen aufgrund natürlicher Evolution gute und sozial kompetente Wesen? Welche Rolle spielen Gesetz und Religion für «gutes Verhalten»? Was verleitet einen Menschen zu einer Handlung, deren einziger Zweck darin besteht, «gut» zu sein? Donald W. Pfaff beantwortet diese Fragen auf der Basis neurowissenschaftlicher Befunde und zeigt, welche Mechanismen im Gehirn Empathie und Wohlwollen auslösen und wie dadurch altruistisches Verhalten entsteht. Mehr noch - er zeigt, wie dieses Wissen wiederum zur Fähigkeit, Gutes zu tun, beitragen kann.«Es ist ein sehr gutes Buch, das versucht den Altruismus auf der Basis moderner Forschungsergebnisse zu beschreiben und zu interpretieren. Der Autor hat dabei sehr tief in Neuro- und Biokiste gegriffen. Er beschreibt biologische Modelle, geht auf moderne neurowissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse ein und diskutiert auf dieser Basis den Altruismus. Erwähnenswert ist auch noch, dass er auch teilweise sehr aktuelle Befunde zu Rate zieht. Als Quintessenz leitet er ab, dass wir (die Menschen) von Natur zu guten und sozial kompetenten Wesen evolutioniert wurden. Ich glaube das zwar nicht, zumindest nicht mit dieser ausschließlichen Bedeutung, aber das ist nicht so wesentlich. Wichtig ist, dass er die neurowissenschaftlichen Befunde interpretiert und auch Laien verständlich präsentiert.» Lutz Jäncke