The Brain from Inside OutIs there a right way to study how the brain works? Following the empiricist's tradition, the most common approach involves the study of neural reactions to stimuli presented by an experimenter. This 'outside-in' method fueled a generation of brain research and now must confront hidden assumptions about causation and concepts that may not hold neatly for systems that act and react. György Buzsáki's The Brain from Inside Out examines why the outside-in framework for understanding brain function has become stagnant and points to new directions for understanding neural function. Building upon the success of 2011's Rhythms of the Brain, Professor Buzsáki presents the brain as a foretelling device that interacts with its environment through action and the examination of action's consequence. Consider that our brains are initially filled with nonsense patterns, all of which are gibberish until grounded by action-based interactions. By matching these nonsense "words" to the outcomes of action, they acquire meaning. Once its circuits are "calibrated" by action and experience, the brain can disengage from its sensors and actuators, and examine "what happens if" scenarios by peeking into its own computation, a process that we refer to as cognition. The Brain from Inside Out explains why our brain is not an information-absorbing coding device, as it is often portrayed, but a venture-seeking explorer constantly controlling the body to test hypotheses. Our brain does not process information: it creates it. |
Contents
| 1 | |
2 Causation and Logic in Neuroscience | 33 |
3 Perception from Action | 53 |
The Fundamental Unit of Communication | 83 |
Cognition from Action | 101 |
6 Brain Rhythms Provide a Framework for Neural Syntax | 141 |
7 Internally Organized Cell Assembly Trajectories | 165 |
8 Internally Organized Activity During Offline Brain States | 199 |
9 Enhancing Brain Performance by Externalizing Thought | 219 |
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Common terms and phrases
action action potentials amygdala animal areas auditory axons behavior brain brain rhythms Buzsáki G causal cell assembly Chapter circuits clock coding cognitive computation connections coordinate corollary discharge correlations cortex cortical distance duration dynamics entorhinal entorhinal cortex environment episodic memory excitatory experience experimenter external eye movements firing rates framework function gamma head direction hippocampal human idea inhibitory interactions internal interneurons learning local field potential log-normal distribution mirror neuron monkeys motor multiple muscles navigation neocortex neural neuromodulators neuronal activity neuronal firing neuronal sequences neuronal trajectories observations output outside-in parietal perception phase place cells place fields population potential prediction prefrontal prefrontal cortex pyramidal cells pyramidal neurons receptive field relationship replay representation responses Rev Neurosci saccadic Science self-organized semantic sensory inputs sequential sharp wave ripples signals similar skewed sleep space spatial spikes stimulus synaptic target temporal theta cycle theta rhythm tion visual