Perceptual Neuroscience: The Cerebral Cortex

Rating:
Summary: Indespendible to the under/graduate student
Review: A short review to say that Mountcastle's book is an excellent compendium of important research on the cortex from Meynert to the present. Stylistically the book should appeal to a wide audience; years of teaching medical students tends to make a professor exceedingly accessible (and jaded). Mountcastle's language is lucid and scholastic, and discoveries are always given within their historical framework. Electrophysiologists will gain the most from the book, but there is more than enough on human subjects to please the neuroimagist, and plenty of wetware information for the connectionist hackers as well. Excellent chapters on synpatic modulation, neuroanatomy, and rhythmicity and sychronization in neocortical networks.

Rating:
Summary: Indespendible to the under/graduate student
Review: A short review to say that Mountcastle's book is an excellent compendium of important research on the cortex from Meynert to the present. Stylistically the book should appeal to a wide audience; years of teaching medical students tends to make a professor exceedingly accessible (and jaded). Mountcastle's language is lucid and scholastic, and discoveries are always given within their historical framework. Electrophysiologists will gain the most from the book, but there is more than enough on human subjects to please the neuroimagist, and plenty of wetware information for the connectionist hackers as well. Excellent chapters on synpatic modulation, neuroanatomy, and rhythmicity and sychronization in neocortical networks.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent introduction to the cerebral cortex
Review: Being a retinal physiologist, I have been studying this tiny bit of the brain for my whole career and have never had a chance to learn much about the rest of the brain. This magnificent book by one of the leaders in cerebral cortex research is a godsend. Many aspects of the cerebral cortex are discussed, from the molecular level all the way to perception, and an interesting chapter on the evolution of the cortex is also included. What impresses me the most is how little is known (or at least WAS known back in around 1997, when this book was written) about the cortex, especially when compared to the retina. All the cortical cell types seem to have been identified. Many properties of individual cells are known (see Table 11-1), and their organization into horizontal layers and vertical minicolumns/columns is well established. All of these known facts are summarized nicely in this book. But what kinds of processing take place in the minicolumns? How are the various distributed systems combined to form perception? Not much is known about the former and even less about the latter, and for these topics Mountcastle has done a good job describing previous attempts to answer these questions as well as suggesting future directions which might lead to solutions.

However, I do have a few negative things to say. The writing is at times hard to follow. This is not because of the material, which is only slightly more advanced than Kandel et al. (2000) and other comparable undergraduate texts; rather, it is mainly due to the extreme precision of Mountcastle's writing, which sometimes results in seemingly awkward sentence structures. In addition, there are many terms which may be unfamiliar to students and non-specialists (e.g. retinal physiologists!), who are among this book's intended audience (see page xvii in the Preface). Though their definitions can be looked up on the internet fairly quickly, including a glossary appendix would be helpful. Thirdly, some of the figures are difficult to understand, because most of them are reprinted directly from the original papers and many symbols and experimental protocols are not explained adequately in the legends/text. However, the biggest (and very consistent) problem is that no references are provided for many important facts/experiments mentioned. One could argue that the references list is already very long (76 pages), but the margins are also needlessly wide and can be reduced by two inches easily, so that many more references could be added without making the book too thick.

Rating:
Summary: The 'where' and 'what', but still no 'how' of brain cortex
Review: In his attempt to bring together the breadth of knowledge required for the determination of how brain cortical operations underlay perceptual experience, Mountcastle succeeds in providing a scholarly, if accessible volume of relevant material. It does not, however, include a systematic overview of our understanding of the cortex throughout the evolution of the neurosciences. Reading the book from cover to cover in chapter order may prove difficult for those lacking familiarity with the basic principles of neuroscience (cf: Kandel & Schwartz; Kuffler, Nicholls & Martin, for example), the general reader finding this to be a tome of high lexical density which requires an extensive neuropharmacological vocabulary. I would have organised the chapters somewhat differently, and/or cross-referenced chapters for content to help guide the more naive reader. Mountcastle provides no direct answer to the question of what the intrinsic function of the cortex is, but promotes its exploration from a dynamic systems stance, with a view to determining how "a distributed system highlights the dynamic neural representation of one, rather than another, sensory event". Prior to presenting the detailed microstructure of the cerebral cortical tissues, Mountcastle provides an extensive introduction to comparative brain morphology (perhaps unnecessarily long for this volume). Although a very appropriate context to have set in the light of the ontogenetic developmental chapters to come, much of the material contained in chapter 2 is better covered elsewhere (e.g., Pearce 1995; Dunbar, 1998). Chapter 6 finally introduces the reader to their first taste of the neural substrate dynamics core to this monograph's principal thesis. Using the hippocampus as an example of a region known in particular for its neural plasticity, the creation and maintenance of memorial processes (as thought to be effected through LTP and LTD mechanisms) are presented as correlating true causal relationships between identifiable synaptic changes over tine. A fine review is offered here (concise in historical, cytoarchitectonic and neurochemical details) together with a candidate cellular basis for the complex operations of the cortical tissues thought to be involved in learning, memory consolidation, the modulation of novel motor patterns - and - `perception itself' ? After some 300 pages, I find myself emmensly satisfied and now better informed concerning some of the `where' and `what' questions of perception and the structure of cortical tissues, but the `how' questions and the nature of the intrinsic operations of the neocortex remain unanswered. An excellent review of EEG history and the account of its physiological basis go no further. What does follow, however, are proposals for finer resolution, and thus enhanced cortical microcircuit functional correlates of cognitive activity, revolving around issues of synchronicity, rhythmicity and coherence, but no clear picture is offered as to how such a distributed neocortical system might generate the more `holistic' central representations of component stimulus features. A surprising ommision from his volume was any mention of the recent work involved with multi-electrode arrays (of which Mountcastle is such a staunch advocate in vivo) which grow nerve networks in electrodynamic culture media. Surely as valuable a contribution is to be made from this work as from those cited in the earlier molecular biology sections of his story as presented here. Whether the field will require a technological and/or paradigm-shift prior to solving the binding problem in perceptual neuroscience awaits future developments. As a compendium of the `what' and `where' of the mammalian, human cortex, this volume is essential reading - a potential review text for post-graduate teaching, and a good example of difficult material being successfully collated. I would have preferred a more coherent continuity between chapters (or better cross referencing between them - how was the author's original layout, I wonder ?) so facilitating the navigation of newcomers through this scholarly tour of a single brain region and its geomorphological terrain. For the neuroscience cogniscenti, this is a book of the kind many of us say that we were going to write, but never did. I am pleased that this text was written. More than simply a review, it nonetheless condenses a literature otherwise requiring the space of several boxes in the office. A valuable reference volume for research, teaching and laboratory shelves alike.

References:

Dickinson, A.R. (1997) Hierarchical Organisation in Serial Search Tasks by Cebus apella monkeys. Unpublished PhD Thesis. University of Edinburgh. Dunbar, R. (1998) Grooming, Gossip & the Evolution of Language ?

Insel T. (1999) MRI comparative stuff

Kandel & Schwartz; (Vars Eds) Principles of Neuroscience.

Kuffler, Nicholls & Martin (1985 ?) From Neuron to Brain.

Pearce (1995 ?) An Introduction to Animal Cognition. LEA

Perritt (St. Andrews) Pribram's (1971) Languages of the Brain Prentice-Kall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

Semendeferi et al., (2000) MRI different apes -

Rating:
Summary: The 'where' and 'what', but still no 'how' of brain cortex
Review: In his attempt to bring together the breadth of knowledge required for the determination of how brain cortical operations underlay perceptual experience, Mountcastle succeeds in providing a scholarly, if accessible volume of relevant material. It does not, however, include a systematic overview of our understanding of the cortex throughout the evolution of the neurosciences. Reading the book from cover to cover in chapter order may prove difficult for those lacking familiarity with the basic principles of neuroscience (cf: Kandel & Schwartz; Kuffler, Nicholls & Martin, for example), the general reader finding this to be a tome of high lexical density which requires an extensive neuropharmacological vocabulary. I would have organised the chapters somewhat differently, and/or cross-referenced chapters for content to help guide the more naive reader. Mountcastle provides no direct answer to the question of what the intrinsic function of the cortex is, but promotes its exploration from a dynamic systems stance, with a view to determining how "a distributed system highlights the dynamic neural representation of one, rather than another, sensory event". Prior to presenting the detailed microstructure of the cerebral cortical tissues, Mountcastle provides an extensive introduction to comparative brain morphology (perhaps unnecessarily long for this volume). Although a very appropriate context to have set in the light of the ontogenetic developmental chapters to come, much of the material contained in chapter 2 is better covered elsewhere (e.g., Pearce 1995; Dunbar, 1998). Chapter 6 finally introduces the reader to their first taste of the neural substrate dynamics core to this monograph's principal thesis. Using the hippocampus as an example of a region known in particular for its neural plasticity, the creation and maintenance of memorial processes (as thought to be effected through LTP and LTD mechanisms) are presented as correlating true causal relationships between identifiable synaptic changes over tine. A fine review is offered here (concise in historical, cytoarchitectonic and neurochemical details) together with a candidate cellular basis for the complex operations of the cortical tissues thought to be involved in learning, memory consolidation, the modulation of novel motor patterns - and - 'perception itself' ? After some 300 pages, I find myself emmensly satisfied and now better informed concerning some of the 'where' and 'what' questions of perception and the structure of cortical tissues, but the 'how' questions and the nature of the intrinsic operations of the neocortex remain unanswered. An excellent review of EEG history and the account of its physiological basis go no further. What does follow, however, are proposals for finer resolution, and thus enhanced cortical microcircuit functional correlates of cognitive activity, revolving around issues of synchronicity, rhythmicity and coherence, but no clear picture is offered as to how such a distributed neocortical system might generate the more 'holistic' central representations of component stimulus features. A surprising ommision from his volume was any mention of the recent work involved with multi-electrode arrays (of which Mountcastle is such a staunch advocate in vivo) which grow nerve networks in electrodynamic culture media. Surely as valuable a contribution is to be made from this work as from those cited in the earlier molecular biology sections of his story as presented here. Whether the field will require a technological and/or paradigm-shift prior to solving the binding problem in perceptual neuroscience awaits future developments. As a compendium of the 'what' and 'where' of the mammalian, human cortex, this volume is essential reading - a potential review text for post-graduate teaching, and a good example of difficult material being successfully collated. I would have preferred a more coherent continuity between chapters (or better cross referencing between them - how was the author's original layout, I wonder ?) so facilitating the navigation of newcomers through this scholarly tour of a single brain region and its geomorphological terrain. For the neuroscience cogniscenti, this is a book of the kind many of us say that we were going to write, but never did. I am pleased that this text was written. More than simply a review, it nonetheless condenses a literature otherwise requiring the space of several boxes in the office. A valuable reference volume for research, teaching and laboratory shelves alike.

References:

Dickinson, A.R. (1997) Hierarchical Organisation in Serial Search Tasks by Cebus apella monkeys. Unpublished PhD Thesis. University of Edinburgh. Dunbar, R. (1998)Grooming, Gossip & the Evolution of Language ?

Insel T. (1999) MRI comparative stuff

Kandel & Schwartz; (Vars Eds) Principles of Neuroscience.

Kuffler, Nicholls & Martin (1985 ?) From Neuron to Brain.

Pearce (1995 ?) An Introduction to Animal Cognition. LEA

Perritt (St. Andrews) Pribram's (1971) Languages of the Brain Prentice-Kall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

Semendeferi et al., (2000) MRI different apes -