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Steven Pinker is amazing. From what I've read from his other articles, books, etc, it's always been enlightening. He also does a beautiful job communicating his

by yan 17y ago

Steven Pinker is amazing. From what I've read from his other articles, books, etc, it's always been enlightening. He also does a beautiful job communicating his ideas.

a-priori 17y ago
I agree, his writings are eye-opening. I know a bit too much about neuroscience, I think, so sometimes when he ventures that way in The Blank Slate I'm unconvinced, but the core of his arguments always stand. My first encounter with his works was The Language Instinct, which was required reading for a course I took on psycholinguistics. If that were more recent, I would have mentioned it in my initial post, because that book completely changed my understanding of human language.
- yan 17y ago
  Some of his writings is how I'm getting my introduction to neuroscience. Also, following stuff like the brain science podcast and reading any popular science books dedicated to it. I'd love to get more in depth, but currently lack direction.
  - a-priori 17y ago
    Well, if you're looking for a textbook, I suggest Biopsychology by Pinel. It was required reading for two courses I took, and I found it to explain things quite well. Something to watch out for though: he tends to over-simplify things in places, which may lead you to develop overly-rigid mental models. There are exceptions to every rule, and some recent papers may contradict what Pinel says about the functions of some areas of the brain, or show that things are actually more nuanced. It's still a good start. Once you have a good grasp of the fundamentals, I suggest reading Nature Reviews Neuroscience. They often have excellent review articles that summarize the state of research in a particular area. http://www.nature.com/nrn/index.html http://www.nature.com/nrn/index.html If I were to suggest one area to focus your attention on, it would be memory. Memory is a central ability of the mammalian brain, and pretty much every area of the brain is involved in memory somehow. Here are some papers that I've found enlightening: Gaffan. Against memory systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: … (2002) Martin and Morris. New life in an old idea: The synaptic plasticity and memory hypothesis revisited. Hippocampus (2002) Frankland and Bontempi. The organization of recent and remote memories. NATURE REVIEWS NEUROSCIENCE (2005) vol. 6 (2) pp. 119-130 Ross and Eichenbaum. Dynamics of hippocampal and cortical activation during consolidation of a nonspatial memory. Journal of Neuroscience (2006) vol. 26 (18) pp. 4852 Dudai. The Neurobiology of Consolidations, Or, How Stable is the Engram?. Annual Review of Psychology (2004) vol. 55 (1) pp. 51-86 Fischer et al. Recovery of learning and memory is associated with chromatin remodelling. Nature (2007) vol. 447 (7141) pp. 178 (but don't worry too much about the parts that are heavy on the biochemistry). Rasch et al. Odor cues during slow-wave sleep prompt declarative memory consolidation. Science (2007) vol. 315 (5817) pp. 1426 One thing you may notice is that all of these papers are published in the last decade. That's about the shelf-life of research in this field. Let me know if you can't find these articles online; I have PDF copies of all of them. Hope that gives you some direction :)

by yan 17y ago

Steven Pinker is amazing. From what I've read from his other articles, books, etc, it's always been enlightening. He also does a beautiful job communicating his ideas.

a-priori 17y ago

I agree, his writings are eye-opening. I know a bit too much about neuroscience, I think, so sometimes when he ventures that way in The Blank Slate I'm unconvinced, but the core of his arguments always stand. My first encounter with his works was The Language Instinct, which was required reading for a course I took on psycholinguistics. If that were more recent, I would have mentioned it in my initial post, because that book completely changed my understanding of human language.

yan 17y ago
Some of his writings is how I'm getting my introduction to neuroscience. Also, following stuff like the brain science podcast and reading any popular science books dedicated to it. I'd love to get more in depth, but currently lack direction.
- a-priori 17y ago
  Well, if you're looking for a textbook, I suggest Biopsychology by Pinel. It was required reading for two courses I took, and I found it to explain things quite well. Something to watch out for though: he tends to over-simplify things in places, which may lead you to develop overly-rigid mental models. There are exceptions to every rule, and some recent papers may contradict what Pinel says about the functions of some areas of the brain, or show that things are actually more nuanced. It's still a good start. Once you have a good grasp of the fundamentals, I suggest reading Nature Reviews Neuroscience. They often have excellent review articles that summarize the state of research in a particular area. http://www.nature.com/nrn/index.html http://www.nature.com/nrn/index.html If I were to suggest one area to focus your attention on, it would be memory. Memory is a central ability of the mammalian brain, and pretty much every area of the brain is involved in memory somehow. Here are some papers that I've found enlightening: Gaffan. Against memory systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: … (2002) Martin and Morris. New life in an old idea: The synaptic plasticity and memory hypothesis revisited. Hippocampus (2002) Frankland and Bontempi. The organization of recent and remote memories. NATURE REVIEWS NEUROSCIENCE (2005) vol. 6 (2) pp. 119-130 Ross and Eichenbaum. Dynamics of hippocampal and cortical activation during consolidation of a nonspatial memory. Journal of Neuroscience (2006) vol. 26 (18) pp. 4852 Dudai. The Neurobiology of Consolidations, Or, How Stable is the Engram?. Annual Review of Psychology (2004) vol. 55 (1) pp. 51-86 Fischer et al. Recovery of learning and memory is associated with chromatin remodelling. Nature (2007) vol. 447 (7141) pp. 178 (but don't worry too much about the parts that are heavy on the biochemistry). Rasch et al. Odor cues during slow-wave sleep prompt declarative memory consolidation. Science (2007) vol. 315 (5817) pp. 1426 One thing you may notice is that all of these papers are published in the last decade. That's about the shelf-life of research in this field. Let me know if you can't find these articles online; I have PDF copies of all of them. Hope that gives you some direction :)