György Buzsáki's "Rhythms of the brain" is a must read for anyone with interest in mechanisms of brain and or complex systems in general. Scope of the material presented in the book is comparable to a textbook, and it would be hard to start reading it without any background in either neuroscience or complex systems, but authors clear writing and step-by-step explanation of the material makes it easy on the readers with little background in the field. I truly enjoyed reading the book and would like to share a brief exploration of the book to other inquisitive individuals. I would start with the overall aim and organization of the book and provide a summary of various chapters.
My interest in neuroscience started by wondering about all the unique and complex tasks that brain can perform, this book helped me to organize my pieces of knowledge and get a broader perspective on various brain's functions and coordination between them. Since I got this book, in despite my exhaustion from all the student life demands, I was looking forward to my nights to immerse myself another cycle of the book. Although the book is presenting you with the advanced and forefront information of a textbook, but the storytelling style of the author makes it joyful and easy on you to follow.
This book is not only a great source for learning about complicated functions of the brain, but also it serves as an excellent introduction to complex systems. Author's bright views and deep knowledge of the field and sub-fields made the book comprehensible for readers with even little background. Footnotes are another book within this book and introduce great sources for more in depth understanding of the concepts brought up if you are interested in them.
Overall goal of the book is to explain the neural synchronization and its role in coordinating various levels of brain mechanism and uniting them. Author does this by first introducing various underlined mechanisms and organization in context of the brain and the biophysical explanations behind them. Then he introduces the reader to various techniques being used for the study of the brain. In the next chapters he introduces oscillations and their roles to tie up various brain organizations and functions.
Book consists of 13 chapters named cycles with enchanting quotes at the beginning of the chapter. Here I'll provide a short summary of the chapters.
Cycle 1 is the introduction of the book starts with the history of discovering brain waves. Within this chapter author provides an overview of the book and introduces readers to some of the basic terms.
Cycle 2, named "structure defines function" provides overview of the structure of the brain, more specifically neocortex at the cellular level and talks about the connectivity within it in macro level. Author talks about five principal cell types in the brain and how various interneurons provide most efficient and precise connectivity of the circuit. Then in cycle 3, "diversity of the cortical function is provided by inhibition", he further explains how the action of inhibitory (GABAergic) interneurons provide the complexity and precise timing and function of the brain.
Cycle 4, "windows on the brain" is the transition to the neural oscillations. This chapter talks about various microscopic and macroscopic neurophysiological techniques that have been utilized to study the brain activity both in-vitro and in-vivo.
Cycle 5, "a system of rhythms: from simple to complex dynamics" as Buzsáki' state in the beginning of the chapter: "The central tenet of this Cycle, which is echoed throughout the book, is that brain dynamics constantly shift from the complex to the predictable." Now that he settled the reader on the essential architecture and wiring system of the brain, he starts his main point of the book, oscillations of the networks in the brain and their synchrony. As throughout the book he settle you down with the terminology and the background on oscillations and then familiarize you with its role in the dynamics of the brain.
Cycle 6, "synchronization by oscillation" builds on the previous chapter and investigate further oscillation, resonance and synchrony. Author distinguishes oscillators and resonance by bringing notion of negative feedback as a requirement for the oscillation. Then he categorizes the neuronal oscillators as chaotic oscillators. Further he talks about the role of the synchrony in emerging the collective behavior of the neurons. He describes neuronal synchrony by a nice analogy: "If you have seen Luis Bravo's Broadway extravaganza Forever Tango, you can picture the qualitative essence of neuronal synchrony: coupling through time by some invisible links." At the end he talks about the neuronal assemblies and their role in self-organization and cognitive function of the brain.
In cycles 7, 8 and 9, respectively "The brain's default state: self-organization oscillations in rest and sleep", "Perturbation of the defined patterns by experience", and " The Gamma Buzz - gluing by the oscillation in the waking brain" author talks about various aspects of the wake sleep cycles. Cycle 7 describes the role of thalamus in relying information and self-organization of the thalamocortical networks in wake sleep cycles.
In cycle 8, he defines sleep as the spontaneous and default state of the brain, talks about the role of the sleep in synaptic plasticity and memory consolidation. IN this chapter he presents various studies and emphasize on the importance of further investigations of brain rhythms in sleep and its role in the awake experiences.
Finally cycle 9, is more emphasizing on the waking experiences and various theories that exist about it. He starts the chapter by investigating "binding hypothesis" and various suggested models for it. Further he introduces gamma oscillation as a dominant field pattern in the waking states that is essential for precise timing and neuronal oscillations. Then he talks about Gamma's possible role in solving the binding problem.
After talking about the waking states in the cycle 9, author transits to talk about perception and action as two characteristics in waking brain in cycle 10, "Perception and action are brain-state dependent". He talks about how brain states are internally coordinated and suggests that: "brain is compelled to interpret and that the interpretation is a combined effect of the physical nature of the input and the temporally evolving spontaneous brain state".
The last three cycles, been the most striving chapters of the book due to dense and cutting edge information that has been presented. But this didn't made it any less joyful and actually they have been my favorite chapters.
Cycle 11, "Oscillations in the "Other Cortex": Navigation in Real and Memory Space", is focused on the memory formation. In this chapter he explore hippocampus organizations and oscillations and its role in memory formation. This was one of my favorite chapters of the book.
Cycles 12 and 13 are where that author puts various pieces of the information presented together as he quotes in the beginning of the chapter to "solve the decisive problems found in organization and order unifying them, resulting from dynamic interaction of parts". These two chapters are least studied, but the author provides us with current investigations and the discussions in the field on these broader problems.
In cycle 12, "Coupling of Systems by Oscillations" author talks about oscillatory packing of the information, and role of the theta oscillation in this processes and coupling of the hippocampus and neocortex. Author investigates the cross frequency coupling of various oscillators in the brain, and mentions that these processes are not studied well enough.
At the end in the cycle 13 "Tough problems", he wraps up the book by putting together all various cycles and at the end he talks about consciousness. In this last chapter author again emphasize the distinct property of the brain: "The most striking, yet perhaps the least appreciated, behavior of cortical net- works is their regenerative, spontaneous activity. This self-generated neuronal activity is what is constantly added to the sensory inputs. Every spike, sensory evoked or spontaneous, in cortical principal cells can reach distant neurons." Author mentions that consciousness is collection of this spontaneous activity and brain's interaction with environment and other brains. He ends the book as: "It may turn out that the rhythms of the brain are also the rhythms of the mind." and add his last footnote that a new story should begin here.
As Buzsáki says in his prelude "Clarity, critical details, and giving proper credit compete for the space, and achieving the appropriate balance is the most difficult thing in writing the book." and once you read the book you would agree with me that he mastered that in this book. Actually that is what makes this book thoroughly interesting and readable despite presence of all these complicated concepts presented.
With just a little background in the field you can definitely enjoy reading this book, my recommendation is re-reading the book, especially if you are new to the field. My second journey through the book helped me to comprehend this dense book, especially the last three chapters, better. Besides I truly enjoyed reading the footnotes and some of the resources presented there, they have been extremely helpful.
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Opiniones destacadas de los Estados Unidos
Ha surgido un problema al filtrar las opiniones justo en este momento. Vuelva a intentarlo en otro momento.
Calificado en Estados Unidos el 30 de septiembre de 2013
Calificado en Estados Unidos el 11 de enero de 2008
Calificado en Estados Unidos el 4 de noviembre de 2017
Opiniones más destacadas de otros países
Jachin.zhang
You shall read for basic neuroscience
Calificado en Francia el 29 de junio de 2019
Alok
All good except if you choose to order from PBC.
Calificado en India el 8 de abril de 2016
