Principles of Brain Functioning: A Synergetic Approach to Brain Activity, Behavior and Cognition

by Hermann Haken

Overview

It is increasingly being recognized that the experimental and theoretical study of the complex system brain requires the cooperation of many disciplines, in­ cluding biology, medicine, physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, linguistics, and others. In this way brain research has become a truly interdis­ ciplinary endeavor. Indeed, the most important progress is quite often made when different disciplines cooperate. Thus it becomes necessary for scientists to look across the fence surrounding their disciplines. The present book is written precisely in this spirit. It addresses graduate students, professors and scientists in a variety of fields, such as biology, medicine and physics. Be­ yond its mathematical representation the book gives ample space to verbal and pictorial descriptions of the main and, as I believe, fundamental new insights, so that it will be of interest to a general readership, too. I use this opportunity to thank my former students, some of whom are my present co-workers, for their cooperation over many years. Among them I wish to mention in particular M. Bestehorn, L. Borland, H. Bunz, A. Daf­ fertshofer, T. Ditzinger, E. Fischer, A. Fuchs, R. Haas, R. Honlinger, V. Jirsa, M. Neufeld, M. Ossig, D. Reimann, M. Schanz, G. Schoner, P. Tass, C. Uhl. My particular thanks go to R. Friedrich and A. Wunderlin for their constant help in many respects. Stimulating discussions with a number of colleagues from a variety of fields are also highly appreciated.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783642795725
Publisher:	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publication date:	02/01/2012
Series:	Springer Series in Synergetics , #67
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1996
Pages:	350
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.04(d)

About the Author

Haken, Hermann

Table of Contents

Prologue.- I Foundations.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Exploring the Brain.- 3. Modeling the Brain. A First Attempt: The Brain as a Dynamical System.- 4. Basic Concepts of Synergetics I: Order Parameters and the Slaving Principle.- 5. Dynamics of Order Parameters.- II Behavior.- 6. Movement Coordination — Movement Patterns.- 7. More on Finger Movements.- 8. Learning.- 9. Animal Gaits and Their Transitions.- 10. Basic Concepts of Synergetics II: Formation of Spatio-temporal Patterns.- 11. Analysis of Spatio-temporal Patterns *.- 12. Movements on a Pedalo.- III EEG and MEG.- 13. Chaos, Chaos, Chaos.- 14. Analysis of Electroencephalograms.- 15. Analysis of MEG Patterns.- IV Cognition.- 16. Visual Perception.- 17. Decision Making as Pattern Recognition.- 18. The Brain as a Computer or Can Computers Think?.- 19. Networks of Brains.- 20. Synergetics of the Brain: Where Do We Stand? Where Do We Go from Here?.- Appendices.- A. Analysis of Time Series.- A.1 Time Series Analysis.- A.2 Definition of Dimensions.- A.3 Dimension of Attractors.- A.4 Some Conclusions.- B. Determination of Adjoint Vectors.- C. The Potentials Occurring in Sect. 16.5.- References and Further Reading.- About the Author.

Editorial Reviews

3 Stars from Doody

The book is a new release in the series devoted to synergetics and this time dedicated to the principles of brain functioning. This book is intended to give a multidisciplinary approach to understanding brain function from the point of view of synergetics, with the cooperation of several disciplines from biology, to computer science, to mathematics. However, it appears that many of the ideas described in this book have been previously discussed in other books of this series. Although the editor claims that this is a book directed to graduate students, professors, and scientists in different areas, the primary audience of this book is beyond graduate student education. Its real target is scientists, in particular neuroscientists, and theorists interested in models to explain brain functioning. The editor is a well-known expert in the field of synergetics who has already edited other books in this series dedicated to synergetics. This book is divided in four sections plus appendixes and a table of contents that guarantee easy access to information. There are many illustrations to ease understanding of the text. However, some chapters are overillustrated, with redundant figures that do not provide extra information. The quality of illustration is appropriate, with some of them in color. The overall appearance of the book is appropriate. This book offers a model of brain functioning based on synergetics, representing a repetition of ideas discussed in previous books of this series. Although the editor is trying to bring together main ideas and new insights in synergetics, it is not clear that he has accomplished the latter task.

Xabier Beristain