Author Description

The essays in this edited volume are written by neuroscientists distinguished for their research into the neurobiology of mammalian sensory processing. Covering a wide range of current experimental approaches to the investigation of the mammalian brain, the contributors address the nature of the central neural representation of the major sensory systems--taste, smell, hearing, sight, pain, and touch. Comparisons of their experimental rationales, methods of approach, and of the resulting data, demonstrate the commonality of many features of neural organization between the different sensory systems explored. Among the features discussed in detail are the import of elaborately structured maps of sensory function in the cerebral cortex, the degree of anatomical and physiological separation of different aspects of the input within single sensory systems, the nature of neuron assemblies responsible for complex analytic events, and the relation between metabolic patterns of activity and physiological recording of response properties. The importance of theoretical models, new imaging techniques, and investigations using neural transplants for experimental analysis of sensory systems are demonstrated and the influence of the concepts of cognitive psychology on experimental investigations of sensory processing is discussed. A series of commentaries links the book's different sections, indicating for the reader those aspects of the experimental findings that are of particular importance to an understanding of the field as a whole.