Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This book offers an introduction to Nanoneuroscience which is a rather new scientific discipline, drawing on a multitude of foundations and assimilating them into a coherent conceptual framework with a practical scientific program. The authors have managed to carry this nontrivial task in a concise and readable book, which should be accessible to any reader equipped with essential scientific skills and motivation. Each of the chapters is accompanied by an extensive list of references which the reader may explore to gain stronger grasp of the subject matter.
The interested reader may use Amazon's 'look inside' and 'search inside' facilities to get a fairly detailed view of the book's contents. A very short description of the book's chapters should be in place, though.
The first chapter introduces Nanoneuroscience as a distinct discipline, offering a glance into the main concepts which are further revealed in later chapters.
The second chapter discusses the nanoscale components of neurons in varying resolution, ranging from biomolecules to nanodevices.
The third chapter presents the cytoskeleton as a nanoscale information processor.
The fourth chapter introduces the issues of nanocarriers and intracellular transport.
The fifth chapter deals with nanotechnology, nanostructure, and nervous system disorders, which seem to offer some promising applications for Nanoneuroscience.
The sixth chapter concludes the book, surveying novel modes of neural computation, which may someday advance our understanding from nanowires to mind.
Personally speaking, my original main interest was in the sixth chapter, which deals with some admittedly speculative issues, like the adequacy of quantum computational models in future explanations of mental issues, up to consciousness itself. The authors have managed to cover those potentially polemic issues in a factual and sober manner. The rigorous scientific minded reader, however, will find proper coverage on a variety of interesting novel concepts throughout the book. At the core of those issues stand the authors' Intraneuronal Matrix model, including the roles of the neuronal cytoskeleton in health and disease (as adequately hinted by the book's title).
Concluding this short review, I think this book duly deserves the maximal positive rating (five stars).
Click Here to see more reviews about: Nanoneuroscience: Structural and Functional Roles of the Neuronal Cytoskeleton in Health and Disease (Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering)
Nanoneuroscience is the study of computationally relevant biomolecules found inside neurons. Because of recent technological advances at the nanometer scale, scientists have at their disposal increasingly better ways to study the brain and the biophysics of its molecules. This book describes how biomolecules contribute to the operations of synapses and perform other computationally relevant functions inside dendrites. These biomolecular operations considerably expand the brain-computer analogy - endowing each neuron with the processing power of a silicon-based multiprocessor. Amazingly, the brain containshundreds of billions of neurons.
