Neural Models of Plasticity

Neural Models of Plasticity: Experimental and Theoretical Approaches focuses on the use of theoretical and empirical methods in investigating the role of neuronal plasticity in learning, memory, and complex brain functions. It examines the neuromodulation in relation to associative learning and memory, developmental assembly of various components of learning and memory, cellular and molecular processes contributing to associative and non-associative learning, and higher-order features of classical conditioning. Organized into 19 chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the central pathways mediating conditioning in the marine mollusk Hermissenda and the behavior modified by conditioning, along with the role of neuromodulation in associative learning in this organism. It then proceeds with a discussion of learning and memory in the marine mollusk Aplysia, the Hebb rule for synaptic plasticity, a drive-reinforcement model of neuronal function for predicting classical conditioning phenomena, and the relationship between olfactory processing and associative memory. The reader is also introduced to a neural circuit for classical conditioning of the eyelid closure response, molecular mechanisms and roles of long-term depression in cerebellar function, and functions of neuronal networks in the hippocampus and neocortex in memory. The book concludes with a chapter on models of calcium regulation in neurons. This book is a valuable resource for neurobiologists, psychologists, adaptive systems theorists, and others working in the fields of anatomy, physiology, neurophysiology, molecular biophysics, chemistry, biology, and psychiatry.