Essentials of Cognitive Neuroscience

Essentials of Cognitive Neuroscience introduces and explicates key principles and concepts in cognitive neuroscience in such a way that the reader will be equipped to critically evaluate the ever-growing body of findings that the field is generating. For some students this knowledge will be needed for subsequent formal study, and for all readers it will be needed to evaluate and interpret reports about cognitive neuroscience research that make their way daily into the news media and popular culture. The book seeks to do so in a style that will give the student a sense of what it's like to be a cognitive neuroscientist: when confronted with a problem, how does one proceed? How does one read and interpret research that's outside of one's sub-area of specialization? How do two scientists advancing mutually incompatible models interrelate? Most importantly, what does it feel like to partake in the wonder and excitement of this most dynamic and fundamental of sciences?

Table of Contents:
Preface xvii Acknowledgments xix Walkthrough of Pedagogical Features xxi Companion Website xxii Section I: The Neurobiology of Thinking 1 1 Introduction and History 4 Key Themes 4 A Brief (and Selective) History 6 Construct validity in models of cognition 6 Localization of function vs. mass action 7 The first scientifically rigorous demonstrations of localization of function 9 What is a Brain and What Does It Do? 12 Looking Ahead to the Development of Cognitive Neuroscience 13 End-of-Chapter Questions 14 References 14 Other Sources Used 14 Further Reading 15 2 The Brain 16 Key Themes 16 Pep Talk 18 Gross Anatomy 18 The cerebral cortex 21 The Neuron 23 Electrical and chemical properties of the neuron 23 Oscillatory Fluctuations in the Membrane Potential 28 Neurons are never truly “at rest” 28 Oscillatory synchrony 29 Complicated, and Complex 31 End-of-Chapter Questions 32 References 32 Other Sources Used 33 Further Reading 33 3 Methods for Cognitive Neuroscience 34 Key Themes 34 Behavior, Structure, Function, and Models 36 Behavior 36 Neuropsychology, neurophysiology, and the limits of inference 36 Different kinds of neuropsychology address different kinds of questions 37 How does behavior relate to mental functions? 38 Methods for lesioning targeted areas of the brain 39 Nonlocalized trauma 39 Transcranial Neurostimulation 40 The importance of specificity (again) 41 Transcranial magnetic stimulation 43 Anatomy and Cellular Physiology 47 Techniques that exploit the cell biology of the neuron 48 Electrophysiology 51 Invasive recording with microelectrodes: action potentials and local field potentials 51 Electrocorticography 53 Electroencephalography 53 Magnetoencephalography 55 Invasive Neurostimulation 55 Electrical microstimulation 55 Optogenetics 55 Analysis of Time-Varying Signals 56 Event-related analyses 56 Magnetic Resonance Imaging 61 Physics and engineering bases 61 MRI methods for in vivo anatomical imaging 64 Functional magnetic resonance imaging 65 Functional connectivity 70 Resting state functional correlations 70 Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy 73 Tomography 73 X-ray computed tomography 73 Positron emission tomography 73 Near-Infrared Spectroscopy 76 Some Considerations For Experimental Design 76 Computational Models and Analytic Approaches 78 Neural network modeling 78 Network science and graph theory 82 End-of-Chapter Questions 84 References 85 Other Sources Used 86 Further Reading 86 Section II: Sensation, Perception, Attention, and Action 87 4 Sensation and Perception of Visual Signals 90 Key Themes 90 The Dominant Sense in Primates 92 Organization of the Visual System 92 The visual field 92 The retina and the LGN of the thalamus 92 The retinotopic organization of primary visual cortex 93 The receptive field 95 Information Processing in Primary Visual Cortex – Bottom-Up Feature Detection 96 The V1 neuron as feature detector 96 Columns, hypercolumns, and pinwheels 99 Information Processing in Primary Visual Cortex – Interactivity 100 Feedforward and feedback projections of V1 100 The relation between visual processing and the brain’s physiological state 104 Where Does Sensation End? Where Does Perception Begin? 106 End-of-Chapter Questions 106 References 107 Other Sources Used 107 Further Reading 108 5 Audition and Somatosensation 109 Key Themes 109 Apologia 111 Audition 111 Auditory sensation 111 Auditory perception 115 Adieu to audition 119 Somatosensation 119 Transduction of mechanical and thermal energy, and of pain 119 Somatotopy 122 Somatosensory plasticity 126 Phantom limbs and phantom pain 129 Proprioception 131 Adieu to sensation 131 End-of-Chapter Questions 131 References 132 Other Sources Used 132 Further Reading 132 6 The Visual System 134 Key Themes 134 Familiar Principles and Processes, Applied to Higher-Level Representations 136 Two Parallel Pathways 136 A diversity of projections from V1 136 A functional dissociation of visual perception of what an object is vs. where it is located 137 Interconnectedness within and between the two pathways 142 The Organization and Functions of the Ventral Visual Processing Stream 144 Hand cells, face cells, and grandmother cells 144 Broader implications of visual properties of temporal cortex neurons 149 A hierarchy of stimulus representation 150 Object-based (viewpoint-independent) vs. image-based (viewpoint-dependent) representation in IT 153 A critical role for feedback in the ventral visual processing stream 153 Taking Stock 158 End-of-Chapter Questions 158 References 159 Other Sources Used 159 Further Reading 160 7 Spatial Cognition and Attention 161 Key Themes 161 Unilateral Neglect: A Fertile Source of Models of Spatial Cognition and Attention 163 Unilateral neglect: a clinicoanatomical primer 163 Hypotheses arising from clinical observations of neglect 164 The Functional Anatomy of the Dorsal Stream 166 Coordinate transformations to guide action with perception 169 From Parietal Space to Medial-Temporal Place 172 Place cells in the hippocampus 173 How does place come to be represented in the hippocampus? 175 The Neurophysiology of Sensory Attention 175 A day at the circus 176 Attending to locations vs. attending to objects 176 Mechanisms of spatial attention 180 Effects of attention on neuronal activity 181 Turning Our Attention to the Future 185 End-of-Chapter Questions 185 References 186 Other Sources Used 186 Further Reading 187 8 Skeletomotor Control 188 Key Themes 188 The Organization of the Motor System 190 The anatomy of the motor system 190 The corticospinal tract 190 The cortico-cerebellar circuit 190 The cortico-basal ganglia-thalamic circuits 192 Functional Principles of Motor Control 193 The biomechanics of motor control 193 Motor cortex 196 The neurophysiology of movement 196 Motor Control Outside of Motor Cortex 202 Parietal cortex: guiding how we move 202 A neurological dissociation between perceiving objects and acting on them 203 Cerebellum: motor learning, balance, . . . and mental representation? 204 Synaptic plasticity 205 Basal ganglia 206 Cognitive Functions of the Motor System 211 Mirror neurons 212 Holding a mirror up to nature? 213 It’s All About Action 214 End-of-Chapter Questions 214 References 215 Other Sources Used 215 Further Reading 216 9 Oculomotor Control and the Control of Attention 218 Key Themes 218 Attention and Action 220 Whys and Hows of Eye Movements 220 Three categories of eye movements 220 The Organization of the Oculomotor System 221 An overview of the circuitry 221 The superior colliculus 222 The posterior system 222 The frontal eye field 223 The supplementary eye field 223 The Control of Eye Movements, and of Attention, In Humans 224 Human oculomotor control 224 Human attentional control 226 The Control of Attention via the Oculomotor System 227 Covert attention 227 Where’s the attentional controller? 230 Are Oculomotor Control and Attentional Control Really the “Same Thing”? 233 The “method of visual inspection” 234 “Prioritized maps of space in human frontoparietal cortex” 235 Of Labels and Mechanisms 238 End-of-Chapter Questions 238 References 238 Other Sources Used 239 Further Reading 240 Section III: Mental Representation 241 10 Visual Object Recognition and Knowledge 243 Key Themes 243 Visual Agnosia 245 Apperceptive agnosia 245 Associative agnosia 245 Computational Models of Visual Object Recognition 247 Two neuropsychological traditions 247 The cognitive neuroscience revolution in visual cognition 249 Category Specificity in the Ventral Stream? 249 Are faces special? 249 Perceptual expertise 251 Evidence for a high degree of specificity for many categories in ventral occipitotemporal cortex 252 Evidence for highly distributed category representation in ventral occipitotemporal cortex 253 Demonstrating necessity 256 The code for facial identity in the primate brain (!?!) 258 Visual Perception as Predictive Coding 261 Playing 20 Questions With the Brain 262 End-of-Chapter Questions 264 References 264 Other Sources Used 265 Further Reading 265 11 Neural Bases of Memory 267 Key Themes 267 Plasticity, Learning, and Memory 269 The Case of H.M. 269 Bilateral medial temporal lobectomy 269 Hippocampus vs. MTL? 272 Association Through Synaptic Modification 273 Long-term potentiation 273 The necessity of NMDA channels for LTM formation 277 How Might the Hippocampus Work? 277 Fast-encoding hippocampus vs. slow-encoding cortex 278 Episodic memory for sequences 279 Episodic memory as an evolutionary elaboration of navigational processing 282 What Are the Cognitive Functions of the Hippocampus? 283 Standard anatomical model 283 Challenges to the standard anatomical model 283 Consolidation 285 Reconsolidation 286 To Consolidate 286 End-of-Chapter Questions 288 References 288 Other Sources Used 289 Further Reading 290 12 Declarative Long-Term Memory 291 Key Themes 291 The Cognitive Neuroscience of LTM 293 Encoding 293 Neuroimaging the hippocampus 293 Incidental encoding into LTM during a short-term memory task 296 The Hippocampus in Spatial Memory Experts 299 Retrieval 299 Retrieval without awareness 300 Documenting contextual reinstatement in the brain 301 Familiarity vs. recollection 303 Knowledge 306 End-of-Chapter Questions 306 References 307 Other Sources Used 308 Further Reading 308 13 Semantic Long-Term Memory 310 Key Themes 310 Knowledge in the Brain 312 Definitions and Basic Facts 312 Category-Specific Deficits Following Brain Damage 313 Animacy, or function? 313 A PDP model of modality specificity 314 The domain-specific knowledge hypothesis 314 How definitive is a single case study? A double dissociation? 315 The Neuroimaging of Knowledge 316 The meaning, and processing, of words 316 An aside about the role of language in semantics and the study of semantics 316 PET scanning of object knowledge 317 Knowledge retrieval or lexical access? 318 Repetition effects and fMRI adaptation 319 The Progressive Loss of Knowledge 321 Primary Progressive Aphasia or Semantic Dementia, Nonverbal deficits in fluent primary progressive aphasia? 322 The locus of damage in fluent primary progressive aphasia? 322 Distal effects of neurodegeneration 324 Entente cordiale 324 Nuance and Challenges 326 End-of-Chapter Questions 326 References 327 Other Sources Used 328 Further Reading 329 14 Working Memory 330 Key Themes 330 “Prolonged Perception” Or “Activated LTM?” 332 Definitions 332 Working Memory and the PFC? The Roots of a Long and Fraught Association 333 Early focus on role of PFC in the control of STM 334 Single-unit delay-period activity in PFC and thalamus 335 Working Memory Capacity and Contralateral Delay Activity 342 The electrophysiology of visual working memory capacity 343 Novel Insights From Multivariate Data Analysis 349 The tradition of univariate analyses 349 MVPA of fMRI 349 Retrospective MVPA of single-unit extracellular recordings 356 Activity? Who Needs Activity? 357 Four-Score and a Handful of Years (and Counting) 360 End-of-Chapter Questions 360 References 360 Other Sources Used 362 Further Reading 362 Section IV: High-Level Cognition 363 15 Cognitive Control 365 Key Themes 365 The Lateral Frontal-Lobe Syndrome 367 Environmental-dependency syndrome 367 Perseveration 368 Electrophysiology of the frontal-lobe syndrome 370 Integration? 371 Models of Cognitive Control 371 Developmental cognitive neuroscience 371 Generalizing beyond development 374 What makes the PFC special? 375 Influence of the DA reward signal on the functions of PFC 376 Neural Activity Relating to Cognitive Control 378 Error monitoring 378 Going Meta 386 Where is the controller? 388 End-of-Chapter Questions 389 References 389 Other Sources Used 390 Further Reading 391 16 Decision Making 392 Key Themes 392 Between Perception and Action 394 Perceptual Decision Making 394 Judging the direction of motion 394 LIP 396 Modeling perceptual decision making 396 Controversy and complications 399 Perceptual decision making in humans 401 Value-Based Decision Making 402 The influence of expected value on activity in LIP 403 Common currency in the omPFC 404 Has neuroeconomics taught us anything about the economics of decision making? 409 Foraging 410 Boys being boys 411 Peer pressure 411 Next Stop 412 End-of-Chapter Questions 412 References 412 Other Sources Used 413 Further Reading 414 17 Social Behavior 415 Key Themes 415 Trustworthiness: A Preamble 417 Delaying gratification: a social influence on a “frontal” class of behaviors 417 The Role of vmPFC in the Control of Social Cognition 418 Phineas Gage 418 Contemporary behavioral neurology 420 Theory of Mind 422 The ToM network 422 The temporoparietal junction (TPJ) 423 False beliefs (?) about Rebecca Saxe’s mind 425 A final assessment of the role of RTPJ in ToM mentalization 429 Observational Learning 430 Predicting the outcome of someone else’s actions 430 Trustworthiness, Revisited 435 End-of-Chapter Questions 435 References 436 Other Sources Used 437 Further Reading 437 18 Emotion 438 Key Themes 438 What is an Emotion? 440 Approach/withdrawal 440 From “feeling words” to neural systems 440 At the nexus of perception and social cognition 440 Trustworthiness Revisited – Again 440 A role for the amygdala in the processing of trustworthiness 441 Implicit information processing by the amygdala 443 The Amygdala 444 Klüver–Bucy syndrome 444 Pavlovian fear conditioning 444 Emotional content in declarative memories 446 The amygdala’s influence on other brain systems 449 The Control of Emotions 450 Extinction 450 How Does That Make You Feel? 455 End-of-Chapter Questions 457 References 458 Other Sources Used 458 Further Reading 459 19 Language 460 Key Themes 460 A System of Remarkable Complexity 462 Wernicke–Lichtheim: The Classical Core Language Network 462 The aphasias 462 The functional relevance of the connectivity of the network 463 Speech Perception 464 Segregation of the speech signal 464 Dual routes for speech processing 468 Grammar 469 Genetics 469 Rules in the brain? 471 Broca’s area 472 The electrophysiology of grammar 475 Speech Production 477 A psycholinguistic model of production 477 Forward models for the control of production 477 Prediction 479 Integration 480 End-of-Chapter Questions 481 References 481 Other Sources Used 483 Further Reading 483 20 Consciousness 485 Key Themes 485 The Most Complex Object in the Universe 487 Different Approaches to the Problem 487 The Physiology of Consciousness 488 Neurological syndromes 488 Sleep 492 Anesthesia 494 Summary across physiological studies 495 Brain Functions Supporting Conscious Perception 495 Are we conscious of activity in early sensory cortex? 497 Manipulating extrinsic factors to study conscious vs. unconscious vision 500 Are Attention and Awareness the Same Thing? 501 Theories of Consciousness 503 Global Workspace Theory 503 Recurrent Processing Theory 505 Integrated Information Theory 506 Updating the Consciousness Graph 508 End-of-Chapter Questions 509 References 509 Other Sources Used 511 Further Reading 511 Glossary G-1 Index I-1

About the Author :
Bradley R. Postle is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has taught cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and systems neuroscience at the undergraduate and graduate level for two decades. He has published over 100 scientific journal articles and chapters on the cognitive neuroscience of memory. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience and eNeuro, and has previously served in this capacity at the journals NeuroImage and Cortex.