Neuroscience Notes

From the Introduction to the Book: Neuroscience began as the broad inquiry into the structure and function of animal nervous systems.  The deep sense that develops in humans who study and understand life is that every creature that lives on planet earth shares common properties. Nervous systems allow organisms to sense, decide, act and remember. Mind and body mesh with world events.

The brain is the organ of the mind. Humans, like other animals, continuously interact with their environment to bring their existing or anticipated state into congruence with a desired state. Humans and other animals are engaged in a continuous tracking operation to locate sources of food and water and to avoid danger.

The basic idea behind animal brains is to bring information about the outside world together with information from inside the body.

Images of the outside tend to be detailed and explicit in consciousness. Vision, hearing and smell are distance senses that inform about events far away. Sensors on the surface of the body inform about close contacts. Sensors in muscles and joints inform about our movement in space-time and provide information about contact with the ground. Sense receptors inside the body are of various kinds and are not clearly represented in consciousness. Inner sensors provide information to the brain about conditions in the body and provide feedback that informs the brain about the consequences of actions taken in the world outside.

Humans are animals in motion. They all appear to be looking for something or someone. Humans, like other animals, continuously interact with their environment to bring their existing or anticipated state into congruence with a desired state. The paradox is that the maintenance of inner homeostasis relies on continuously regenerating state of behavioral disequilibrium. To maintain blood sugar at a relatively stable level, for example, humans have to make repeated trips out of their comfort zone to find food. Humans and other animals are engaged in a continuous tracking operation to locate sources of food and water and to avoid danger. Drives are states of disequilibrium that originate with body needs and are briefly stabilized by satisfying the need.Foraging, hunting, capturing and killing are strategies of finding food. Predatory aggression is a behavior package attached to the drive to find food. Secondary goals are more numerous and include defining and defending territory, having sex, finding shelter and securing a modicum of temporary safety through group cooperation.

Author Stephen Gislason MD. New edition, 2010. Abobe PDF file for download