“A personal yet magisterial account of the new brain-based approach to flavor perception . . . [a] panoramic view of science, culture, and behavior.”—Avery Gilbert, author of What the Nose Knows Leading neuroscientist Gordon M. Shepherd embarks on a paradigm-shifting trip through the “human brain flavor system,” laying the foundations for a new scientific field: neurogastronomy. Challenging the belief that the sense of smell diminished during human evolution, Shepherd argues that this sense, which constitutes the main component of flavor, is far more powerful and essential than previously believed. Shepherd begins Neurogastronomy with the mechanics of smell, particularly the way it stimulates the nose from the back of the mouth. As we eat, the brain conceptualizes smells as spatial patterns, and from these and the other senses it constructs the perception of flavor. Shepherd then considers the impact of the flavor system on contemporary social, behavioral, and medical issues. He analyzes flavor’s engagement with the brain regions that control emotion, food preferences, and cravings, and he even devotes a section to food’s role in drug addiction and, building on Marcel Proust’s iconic tale of the madeleine, its ability to evoke deep memories. Shepherd connects his research to trends in nutrition, dieting, and obesity, especially the challenges that many face in eating healthily. He concludes with human perceptions of smell and flavor and their relationship to the neural basis of consciousness. Everyone from casual diners and ardent foodies to wine critics, chefs, scholars, and researchers will delight in Shepherd’s fascinating, scientific-gastronomic adventures. “Those who make the effort will be rewarded: they’ll never look at eating the same way again.”—Library Journal

This updated text will continue to serve the needs of students in introductory neuroscience courses. Among topics highlighted in the 3rd edition are the superfamily of molecules responsible for membrane signalling, and the molecular basis of sensory perception.

The neuron doctrine, first formulated in 1891, states that the brain is constructed of individual neurons, organized into functioning circuits that mediate behavior. Above all else, this is the main concept that underlies all of modern neuroscience. This 25th Aniversary Edition of The Foundations of the Neuron Doctrine explains how this theory was the product of an explosion of histological studies and vigorous debates near the end of the nineteenth century by an extraordinary group of scientists, most importantly the leading figure of the time, Santiago Ramon y Cajal of Spain, and includes the foremost nervous system investigators of many countries, such as Albrecht Kolliker, Sigmund Freud, Wilhelm His, August Forel, Fritdjof Nansen and Gustav Retzius.

In his new book, Gordon M. Shepherd expands on the startling discovery that the brain creates the taste of wine. This approach to understanding wine's sensory experience draws on findings in neuroscience, biomechanics, human physiology, and traditional enology. Shepherd shows, just as he did in Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why It Matters, that creating the taste of wine engages more of the brain than does any other human behavior. He clearly illustrates the scientific underpinnings of this process, along the way enhancing our enjoyment of wine. Neuroenology is the first book on wine tasting by a neuroscientist. It begins with the movements of wine through the mouth and then consults recent research to explain the function of retronasal smell and its extraordinary power in creating wine taste. Shepherd comprehensively explains how the specific sensory pathways in the cerebral cortex create the memory of wine and how language is used to identify and imprint wine characteristics. Intended for a broad audience of readers—from amateur wine drinkers to sommeliers, from casual foodies to seasoned chefs—Neuroenology shows how the emotion of pleasure is the final judge of the wine experience. It includes practical tips for a scientifically informed wine tasting and closes with a delightful account of Shepherd's experience tasting classic Bordeaux vintages with French winemaker Jean-Claude Berrouet of the Chateau Petrus and Dominus Estate.

For modern scientists, history often starts with last week's journals and is regarded as largely a quaint interest compared with the advances of today. However, this book makes the case that, measured by major advances, the greatest decade in the history of brain studies was mid-twentieth century, especially the 1950s. The first to focus on worldwide contributions in this period, the book ranges through dozens of astonishing discoveries at all levels of the brain, from DNA (Watson and Crick), through growth factors (Hamburger and Levi-Montalcini), excitability (Hodgkin and Huxley), synapses (Katz and Eccles), dopamine and Parkinson's (Carlsson), visual processing (Hartline and Kuffler), the cortical column (Mountcastle), reticular activating system (Morruzzi and Magoun) and REM sleep (Aserinsky), to stress (Selye), learning (Hebb) and memory (HM and Milner). The clinical fields are also covered, from Cushing and Penfield, psychosurgery and brain energy metabolism (Kety), to most of the major psychoactive drugs in use today (beginning with Delay and Deniker), and much more.The material has been the basis for a highly successful advanced undergraduate and graduate course at Yale, with the classic papers organized and accessible on the web. There is interest for a wide range of readers, academic, and lay because there is a focus on the creative process itself, on understanding how the combination of unique personalities, innovative hypotheses, and new methods led to the advances. Insight is given into this process through describing the struggles between male and female, student and mentor, academic and private sector, and the roles of chance and persistence. The book thus provides a new multidisciplinary understanding of the revolution that created the modern field of neuroscience and set the bar for judging current and future advances.

Updated and revised, the second edition of Handbook of Brain Microcircuits covers the functional organization of 50 brain regions. This now-classic text uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine the integration of structure, function, electrophysiology, pharmacology, brain imaging, and behavior. Through uniquely concise and authoritative chapters by leaders in their fields, the Handbook of Brain Microcircuits synthesizes many of the new principles of microcircuit organization that are defining a new era in understanding the brain connectome, integrating the major neuronal pathways and essential microcircuits with brain function. New to the Second Edition: · Insights into new regions of the brain through canonical microcircuit diagrams for each region · Latest methodology in optogenetics, neurotransmitter uncaging, computational models of neurons and microcircuits, serial ultrastructure reconstructions, cellular and regional imaging · Extrapolated data from new genetic tools and understandings applied to microcircuits in the mouse and Drosophila · Common principles across vertebrate and invertebrate microcircuit systems, one of the key goals of modern neuroscience

Modern brain imaging is revolutionizing the study of brain function in health and disease. However, few realize that its origins began in the nineteenth century with Dr. Angelo Mosso's pioneering experiments. A foremost Italian physiologist and scientist, Angelo Mosso studied several patients brought to him with head injuries that exposed their live brains to direct, long-term observation. He took advantage of these rare opportunities to document, for the first time, changes in cerebral blood flow in response to different stimuli, behaviors, and emotions, the very same changes that are now the basis for the measurements underlying modern functional brain imaging. Mosso was widely recognized by his contemporaries for his highly original studies, published both in Italian in 1878 and in German in 1881. Yet there has never been a translation through which this groundbreaking work could be appreciated by the English-speaking world. Indeed, Angelo Mosso's sophisticated experiments were to neuroscience what surgeon William Beaumont's in vivo observations were to gastric physiology fifty years earlier. This unique monograph establishes Mosso's rightful role as the pioneer of brain imaging. Through it, the modern reader, whether expert neuroscientist or interested student, can gain a new perspective on the author's remarkable insights: how behaviors as subtle as thinking about a subject or feeling an emotion produce the changes in pulsations of the brain that he observed and recorded for posterity. Special features of this volume include first a brief summary of Mosso's life. Two pioneers of modern brain imaging, Marcus E. Raichle (winner of the Kavli Prize for Neuroscience) and Gordon M. Shepherd (Yale University Professor of Neurobiology) then review Mosso's work and provide extensive commentary to explain its relevance to modern brain science. The authors not only emphasize Mosso's pioneering role in brain imaging, but also his fundamental contribution to the rise of cognitive neuroscience. The English translation (by historian of medicine Christiane Nockels Fabbri) follows, together with all of the plates and illustrations of the original volume. The result is a classic of neuroscience, now available for wide appreciation by neuroscientists, neurologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, historians of science and medicine, and the general public.