Exploring the Thalamus [Hardcover]

S. Murray Sherman (Author), Ray W. Guillery (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0123054605 | ISBN-13: 978-0123054609 | Publication Date: December 12, 2000 | Edition: 1

The thalamus is a group of cells placed centrally in the brain that serve a critical role in controlling how both sensory and motor signals are passed from one part of the cerebral cortex to another. Essentially, all information reaching the cerebral cortex and thus consciousness is relayed through the thalamus. The role of the thalamus in controlling the flow of information (such as visual, auditory, and motor) to the cortex has only recently begun to be understood. This book provides an in-depth look at the function of the thalamus and its role as relayer of information to the cerebral cortex. The authors explore how the thalamus controls messages that are passed to the cortex and they introduce the novel suggestion that the thalamus serves a critical role in controlling how messages pass from one part of the cortex to another. Exploring the Thalamus is a comprehensive, up-to-date reference for researchers. It discusses problems concerning the function and structure of the thalamus and concludes each chapter with thought-provoking questions regarding future research.

Key Features:
* Focuses on thalamocortical interrelationships
* Discusses important problems concerning the function and structure of the thalamus
* Concludes each chapter with thought-provoking questions requiring future research

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[The book] is not a textbook but a report from the trenches, a down-and-dirty look at the brain as it appears to two observers who have seen it from close at hand. It deserves to be read a few pages at a time, with thoughtful breaks..."
--Richard Masland, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston in TRENDS IN NEUROSCIENCES (2001)
"While their [Sherman and Guillery] conclusions are based on a broad synthesis of established findings, much of what they have to say is new and exploratory. The book is not intended to be a definitive thesis on the thalamus, but an offering to consider with them the functional applications of what is known about circuit structure and physiology in the thalamus. Thus, we are invited to join Sherman and Guillery in "Exploring the Thalamus." As our guides and instructors in this adventure, they present and interpret an impressive amount of information."
-Jon H. Kass, Vanderbuilt University, in the JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE (2001)

From the Back Cover

Practically all information reaching the cerebral cortex, and thus all of the messages that reach consciousness, pass through the thalamus, a centrally placed part of the brain that, in humans, is roughly the size of a walnut. Despite the obvious importance of the thalamus as a relay, its role in controlling the flow of information to the cortex has only recently begun to be understood. In Exploring the Thalamus, two senior neuroscientists whose research careers have focused heavily on the thalamus, have joined forces to provide a view of its role in the dynamic control of information to the cerebral cortex. They provide an innovative and unified account of its functional organization and introduce the novel suggestion that the thalamus serves a critical role in controlling not only how messages pass to the cortex from other parts of the brain, but also how messages pass from one part of the cerebral cortex to another.
Key Features:
* Focuses on thalamocortical interrelationships
* Discusses important problems concerning the function and structure of the thalamus
* Concludes each chapter with thought-provoking questions requiring future research

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Academic Press; 1 edition (December 12, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0123054605
• ISBN-13: 978-0123054609
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,712,530 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Your organ works thanks to the thalamic organist, June 1, 2001

By 

Paul R. Adams (stony brook, ny United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Exploring the Thalamus (Hardcover)

The human brain is dominated by the wrinkled sheet of gray matter called the neocortex. Almost all the information reaching this sheet arrives via an obscure but vital lump of 100 million nerve cells called the thalamus, the subject of Sherman and Guillery's exciting though forbidding book. The book is exciting because it breaks away from the sterile, narrow and hyperfactual approaches that have hitherto dominated this field. Even more exciting are the glimpsed possibilities it provides that if we could only understand the thalamus, we could perhaps also understand the neocortex, and hence, the human mind. The book is forbidding because the thalamus is complex, mysterious and seemingly useless - like the hieroglyphics carved on an old pointed rock sold in a bazaar as a hatrack. Other far more expensive tomes on the thalamus insist that it is merely a hatrack, but Sherman and Guillery rightly concentrate on the hieroglyphics, though they ultimately admit themselves stumped. We still do not know what the thalamus does, but the authors bring a number of new issues to center stage that will surely be part of the solution. First, the main cells of the thalamus can send two quite different sorts of electrical message to the cortex. Second, the message selection hinges on "modulatory" influences arriving from the cortex itself as well as deep brain regions that control sleep, dreams and attention. Third, when one part of the neocortex communicates with another, it often does so via the thalamus, as though it cannot understand messages unless they are thalamically interpreted. If you want to reach the basecamp that leads to the unconquered Everest of science, the human brain, struggle through this book.