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Progress in Brain Research serial highlights new advances in the field with this new volume presenting interesting chapters. Each chapter is written by an international board of authors - Provides the authority and expertise of leading contributors from an international board of authors - Presents the latest release in Progress in Brain Research serials - Updated release includes the latest information on Neurophysiology of Silence

The thrilling story of how our senses evolved and how they shape our encounters with the world Our senses are what make life worth living. They allow us to appreciate a sip of an ice-cold drink, the sound of laughter, the touch of a lover. But only recently have incredible advances in sensory biology given us the ability to understand how and why our senses evolved as they have. In Where We Meet the World, biologist Ashley Ward takes readers on a breathtaking tour of how our senses function. Ward looks at not only the five major senses—vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch—but also a host of other senses, such as balance and interoception, the sense of the body's internal state. Drawing on new research, he explores how our senses interact with and regulate each other, and he uncovers what we can learn from how other animals—and even bacteria—encounter the world. Full of warmth and humor, Where We Meet the World shows how new insights in biology transform our understanding of the relationship between ourselves and our environment, revealing the vibrancy—and strangeness—of both.

Tinnitus and Hyperacusis: Facts, Theories, and Clinical Implications provides an overview on this burgeoning field, covering the underlying mechanisms and potential treatments for these disorders. The book begins with an overview of the etiology and genetics behind tinnitus and hyperacusis. The author then proposes two parallel neural pathways underlying these conditions and provides a basis for connecting animal to human research. Neurotransmitters, neuromodulators and immediate early genes are discussed, along with a detailed comparison of about a dozen models aimed at explaining tinnitus and hyperacusis, including the neurophysiological model, the neural synchrony model and the cortical map reorganization and filling-in model. Potential treatments of tinnitus and hyperacusis, from behavioral to non-invasive neuromodulation are also discussed. This book is written for clinical neuroscientists, audiologists, neuro-otologists, neurologists and clinical psychologists. - Describes the etiology and genetics of tinnitus and hyperacusis - Compares animal data and human findings in activity of the limbic system - Discusses ten models of tinnitus and hyperacusis - Presents an overview of treatments for behavioral to non-invasive neuromodulation

This book explores connections between music, neural activations and brain plasticity, in order to better understand its associated psychological and physiological effects. The final goal is to focus on the positive effects of music to treat neurological disorders, establishing a new co-ordination between different brain areas to improve both mental illness and wellbeing. A secondary goal is to analyse the role of music at a psycho-sociological level, to understand both the transformation of music into a cultural model and the vision of music as an innate instinct.Music is able to create both emotions and volitional processes. The application of new neuroimaging techniques allows us to explore and evaluate with accuracy what happens in our brain during the creative and artistic performance. A wide range of brain regions are recruited for creative tasks, and music has the opportunity to help in enhance and reset some brain pathological disturbances being also able to ameliorate and restore some rhythmic body activities such as sleep, movement and co-ordination. The book represents a valuable and innovative tool both for neurologists as well as healthcare professionals involved in the management of neurological disorders.

How sound leaves a fundamental imprint on who we are.Making sense of sound is one of the hardest jobs we ask our brains to do. In Of Sound Mind, Nina Kraus examines the partnership of sound and brain, showing for the first time that the processing of sound drives many of the brain's core functions. Our hearing is always on—we can't close our ears the way we close our eyes—and yet we can ignore sounds that are unimportant. We don't just hear; we engage with sounds. Kraus explores what goes on in our brains when we hear a word—or a chord, or a meow, or a screech. Our hearing brain, Kraus tells us, is vast. It interacts with what we know, with our emotions, with how we think, with our movements, and with our other senses. Auditory neurons make calculations at one-thousandth of a second; hearing is the speediest of our senses. Sound plays an unrecognized role in both healthy and hurting brains. Kraus explores the power of music for healing as well as the destructive power of noise on the nervous system. She traces what happens in the brain when we speak another language, have a language disorder, experience rhythm, listen to birdsong, or suffer a concussion. Kraus shows how our engagement with sound leaves a fundamental imprint on who we are. The sounds of our lives shape our brains, for better and for worse, and help us build the sonic world we live in.

Hearing loss is the most common form of sensory impairment in humans, affecting 360 million persons worldwide. In parallel, tinnitus disorder, the perception of a phantom sound often described as a ringing or buzzing, affects around 10–15% of the general population and interferes with daily life. Hyperacusis, defined as a hypersensitivity to moderate-intensity sounds often co-occurs with tinnitus suggesting a common mechanism of dysfunction for these two perceptual disorders. Whereas some drug candidates are in the process of being developed, nowadays no effective treatment exists to cure hearing loss and tinnitus.The topic of this book was selected with the goal of emphasizing mechanisms that induce hearing loss and tinnitus which lead the selection of promising targets for hearing disorder treatment.Hair cells (HC) are the sensory cells of the inner ear required for both auditory and vestibular functions in all vertebrates. HC are progressively lost during ageing and they are in addition sensitive to physical and acoustic traumas, infectious diseases and chemicals present in commonly used treatments such as anticancer, antimalarial or antibiotics. As adult mammals--including humans--cannot regenerate dead HC, all the possible injury could result in irreversible and permanent hearing loss. It has been shown, however, that a limited capacity to regenerate HC exists in mouse at an early stage of development. The regenerative capacity of HC then appears simply “repressed” in adult mammals, and one could expect it will be possible to re-activate it with an appropriate therapeutic approach which is still to be defined. Immune-mediated inner ear disease has been introduced and accepted as one SNHL pathophysiology; it responds to immunosuppressive therapy and is one of the few reversible forms of bilateral SNHL. Macrophages are always present in the spiral ligament of the lateral wall and are activated in response to various types of stimuli, including noise exposure, ischemia, mitochondrial damage, and surgical stress. Recent studies have also revealed another type of immune cell, called perivascular melanocyte-like macrophages (PVM/Ms), in the stria vascularis. The book will include a review of inflammatory/immune cells in the cochlear lateral wall, the pathways involved in cochlear damage and their potential as therapeutic targets.The final chapter provides an overview of current animal model of tinnitus and hyperacusis. Nowadays no effective treatment exists to cure tinnitus and hyperacusis. One major obstacle to arises from the fact that tinnitus is a subjective phenomenon, the only possible diagnosis relies on self-reports of the subjects. The main constraint of the use of animal models is the subjective character of tinnitus. This chapter describe the advancement in animal models which play an important role in revealing the underlying mechanisms and treatment for tinnitus and hyperacusis.

'Congratulations on the purchase of this exclusive product, tailor-made just for you. It will provide you with years of continuous existence.'So begins The Brain: A User's Manual, Marco Magrini's fascinating guide to the inner workings of one of nature's most miraculous but misunderstood creations: the human brain. This user-friendly manual offers an accessible guide to the machine you use the most, deconstructing the brain into its constituent parts and showing you both how they function and how to maintain them for a longer life. Cutting through the noise of modern pop psychology, The Brain: A User's Manual is a refreshingly factual approach to self-help. Written with a deft style and wry humour, it offers tips on everything from maximising productivity to retaining memory and boosting your mood.

An unprecedented book that discusses a decades long journey of understanding vision and visual impairment through working with patients with brain damage Edward de Haan, a noted clinical vision researcher for the last 35 years, explains how the healthy brain deals with visual information and reveals how he learned to appreciate what it means to be visually impaired. Through discussions of fascinating case studies, he shows that visual deficits are individually unique. Some patients perceive the world without color, some see objects in a distorted manner, whilst others will claim that they can still see although they are demonstrably blind. The author details his experiences with these patients to demonstrate the manner in which patient work is a unique and vital part of discovering how the brain processes visual information. In doing so, Impaired Vision offers a review of the clinical symptoms related to visual impairment and highlights that the patient study method has not lost any of its relevance in our increasingly high-tech world. This important book: Explores the various clinical phenomena in visual impairment after brain damage Demonstrates the effectiveness of the patient study method for understanding visual deficits after brain damage Contains comprehensive coverage of the variety of symptoms that are manifest in patients with visual impairment Includes compelling case studies of visually impaired patients Written for a general audience but of interest for students, researchers and clinicians, Impaired Vision contains fascinating case studies that offer an understanding of the symptoms that are associated with visuals deficits of brain damage.

The book is organized around 4 sections. The first deals with the creativity and its neural basis (responsible editor Emmanuelle Volle). The second section concerns the neurophysiology of aesthetics (responsible editor Zoï Kapoula). It covers a large spectrum of different experimental approaches going from architecture, to process of architectural creation and issues of architectural impact on the gesture of the observer. Neurophysiological aspects such as space navigation, gesture, body posture control are involved in the experiments described as well as questions about terminology and valid methodology. The next chapter contains studies on music, mathematics and brain (responsible editor Moreno Andreatta). The final section deals with evolutionary aesthetics (responsible editor Julien Renoult).Chapter'Composing Music from Neuronal Activity: The Spikiss Project'is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Does eating off a red plate really curb your appetite? Can music enhance sweet flavours and deepen savoury ones? Why does a homemade Belgian double-chocolate cake make your mouth water more than a chocolate cake? And would you pay more for it? Discover the answers to these questions and more in this clever little book that draws on the latest scientific research to explain the innumerable influences behind our appetites, tastes, and eating habits. Learn how to throw your best dinner party yet by optimising the music, lighting, and table setting. Become a savvy shopper by understanding how supermarkets present their products to make some seem more appealing than others. Feel confident ordering food and wine in a restaurant without paying more than they're worth. Know what and why you eat, when and how you do — before you next sit down to dine!

“A remarkable book, which in an entertaining way takes a deep dive into our bodies... you'll never see (or taste) food the same way again!” —Martin Lindstrom, New York Times–bestselling author A Belgian chocolate cake topped with a velvety homemade mousse catches your eye on the menu. The next thing you know, you've ordered it—despite the hefty price. But do you know why?Through over 40 compelling questions, this book explores how our eating decisions tread the line between conscious and subconscious, and enables us to be more intelligent about food. With expert insights that draw from psychology, neuroscience, popular culture, and more, learn to see the innumerable influences behind your diet and cravings—from the size and color of your plate, to the placement of products in a supermarket, to the order in which you sit when out with friends.And the chocolate cake? Would you believe research shows that regional descriptions (Belgian!) and emotive, sensory language (homemade! velvety!) subtly affect your appetite? Know what and why you eat, when and how you do—before you next sit down to dine.“We make 200 conscious and unconscious decisions about food every day. Clearly, eating is no fun anymore. The authors want to cut through the juice cleanses and paleo diets to bring back some common sense.” —The New York Times Book Review“The connections between our emotions and the foods we choose are explored in fascinating detail.” —Parade.com“Offers easily digestible insights to help you make more conscious choices about what goes in your stomach.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Human Auditory System: Fundamental Organization and Clinical Disorders provides a comprehensive and focused reference on the neuroscience of hearing and the associated neurological diagnosis and treatment of auditory disorders. This reference looks at this dynamic area of basic research, a multidisciplinary endeavor with contributions from neuroscience, clinical neurology, cognitive neuroscience, cognitive science communications disorders, and psychology, and its dramatic clinical application. - A focused reference on the neuroscience of hearing and clinical disorders - Covers both basic brain science, key methodologies and clinical diagnosis and treatment of audiology disorders - Coverage of audiology across the lifespan from birth to elderly topics

This concise but comprehensive book will help interested readers in the health care professions to navigate their way through the jungle of movement disorders, including the potentially complex differential diagnosis and management. The different disorders are discussed in individual sections that explain how to examine the patient and recognize the disorder from its basic phenomenology, how to confirm a diagnosis, how to distinguish a particular disorder from related conditions, and how to treat each disorder effectively. The book makes liberal use of diagrams, algorithms, tables, summary boxes, and illustrations to facilitate solution of clinical problems at the bedside and to solidify previously learned clinical and therapeutic concepts. It will be of interest to a broad audience of health professionals, scientists, and medical students.

Understanding tinnitus and treating patients with tinnitus must involve many disciplines of basic science and clinical practice. The book provides comprehensive coverage of a wide range of topics related to tinnitus including its pathophysiology, etiology and treatment. The chapters are written by researchers and clinicians who are active in the areas of basic science such as neurophysiology and neuroanatomy and in clinical specialties of psychology, psychiatry, audiology and otolaryngology.• Comprehensive coverage of the pathology and cause of tinnitus including genetics • Hyperacusis, phonophobia and other abnormalities in perception of sounds • The role of neural plasticity in tinnitus

Hearing: Anatomy, Physiology and Disorders of the Auditory System provides detailed information about the anatomy and physiology of the entire auditory system and it describes important aspects of disorders of the middle ear, the cochlea, and the nervous system in a comprehensive manner. Most other textbooks on Hearing are focused on either the periphery or the central nervous system and rarely integrate anatomy and physiology with clinical issues. In the past years, it has become apparent that pathologies of the peripheral parts of the auditory system affect the function of the nervous system, and vice versa. It is thus more and more important to view the peripheral and central parts of the auditory system in an integrative way. This book integrates descriptions of disorders of the ear and the nervous system and provides a comprehensive coverage of anatomy and physiology of the entire auditory system. The book introduces the role of neural plasticity in the symptoms of disorders such as tinnitus, hyperacusis and phonophobia. A separate chapter discusses cochlear and auditory brainstem implants.· This book provides a thorough understanding of the anatomy and function of the auditory system · Provides thorough information on the peripheral nervous system and auditory organs as well as the central nervous system· As valuable for students of and reasearchers in basic sciences (biology, psychology, neuroscience, audiology etc) as for clinicians· Offers an introduction into psychoacoustics and physical acoustics· Presents information on important disorders of the auditory system (including Tinnitus, · Includes chapter on cochlear and auditory brainstem implants· Fully illustrated with carefully selected images