The Mind's Machine

Neil V. Watson and the members of his lab at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada study sex-related aspects of the structure and function of the nervous system, with ongoing grant support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. His research, which spans from the effects of hormones and pollutants on the structure of the nervous system to the relationships among social factors, cognition, and steroids in humans, has appeared in a variety of journals, including the Journal of Neuroscience, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, and Brain Research. Dr. Watson received his undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Western Ontario and his Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, he joined the faculty at SFU in 1996 where he is now Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience and Chair of Psychology. He teaches biological psychology to hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students each year. S. Marc Breedlove, the Barnett Rosenberg Professor of Neuroscience at Michigan State University, has written over 130 scientific articles investigating the role of hormones in shaping the developing and adult nervous system, publishing in journals including Science, Nature, Nature Neuroscience, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. He is also passionate about teaching-in the classroom, and in the greater community through interviews with the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Newsweek, as well as broadcast programs such as All Things Considered, Good Morning America, and Sixty Minutes. He has active grant support from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Breedlove is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Association for Psychological Science.

IntroductionChapter 1 Structure and Function Neuroanatomy and Research MethodsChapter 2 Neurophysiology:The Generation, Transmission, and Integration of Neural SignalsChapter 3 The Chemistry of Behavior:Neurotransmitters and NeuropharmacologyChapter 4 Development of the BrainChapter 5 The Sensorimotor SystemChapter 6 Hearing, Balance, Taste, and SmellChapter 7 Vision: From Eye to BrainChapter 8 Hormones and SexChapter 9 Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal EnvironmentChapter 10 Biological Rhythms and SleepChapter 11 Emotions, Aggression, and StressChapter 12 Psychopathology The Biology of Behavioral DisordersChapter 13 Memory and LearningChapter 14 Attention and Higher CognitionChapter 15 Language and Lateralization