Neural Activity and the Growth of the Brain

This 1994 volume explores the hypothesis that neural activity generated by experience modulates the ongoing growth of the brain during maturation.

Dale Purves (Author)

9780521455701, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 24 June 1994

126 pages
22.9 x 14 x 0.8 cm, 0.2 kg

Understanding the role of neural activity in the development of the brain has been a major concern of many modern neurobiologists. The reason is plain enough: since the world influences the brain by means of action potentials and synaptic potentials, activity must be the chief cause of the neural changes wrought by experience. This 1994 volume explores the hypothesis that neural activity generated by experience modulates the ongoing growth of the brain during maturation, thus sculpting in each of us a unique nervous system according to the events of our early life. Brain growth is considered at a macroscopic level by examining brain maps and their modular substructure, and at a cellular level by investigating the neuronal interactions that influence the formation and maintenance of these structures. The ways that experience influences the maturation of the brain at both macroscopic and microscopic levels are described, and the conventional wisdom is re-examined.

Preface
Introduction
Part I. Lecture I: Maps: 1. Brain growth and its potential significance
2. A contrary view of brain development
3. Brain maps
4. Measurement of maps in the developing brain
5. Conclusion
Part II. Lecture II: Modules: 6. Discovery and definition
7. The significance of modularity
8. The development of modular circuitry
9. Conclusion
Part III. Lecture III: Trophic Interactions: 10. Qualitative and quantitative accuracy of neural connections
11. Getting the numbers right
12. The importance of target cell geometry in quantitative accuracy
13. Does setting the value of convergence involve synapse elimination?
14. A basis for the interactions that determine convergence
15. The nature of trophic signals
16. Conclusion
Part IV. Lecture IV: Activity: 17. How neural activity might lead to information storage
18. The effects of activity in the developing visual system
19. An alternative interpretation of the effects of visual deprivation
20. Some pertinent observations in the peripheral nervous system
21. Neural activity and the growth of the brain
22. Some caveats
23. Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Neurosciences [PSAN]