Principles of Theoretical Neurophysiology

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-XII

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2. General Properties of the Brain

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Introducing the Problem

      • Arnaldo Arduini

      Pages 3-11

   3. Structural and Functional Properties

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      Pages 12-27

   4. The Key Property: Organization

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      Pages 28-41

   5. Short Review of Approaches and Methods

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      Pages 42-59

   6. Multidimensionality, Homogeneity and Fields

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      Pages 60-71

3. Physics and the Brain

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 73-73

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   2. A First Approach: Statistics

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      Pages 75-91

   3. States of the Brain

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      Pages 92-104

   4. Dynamic Laws and Transformation of Brain States

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      Pages 105-119

   5. Reference Systems for Brain Function

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      Pages 120-131

   6. The Continuum in the Central Nervous System

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      Pages 132-141

   7. Outlines of a Theory

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      Pages 142-152

   8. On this Side of the Border: Relativistic Aspects

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      Pages 153-162

4. Back Matter

   Pages 163-192

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The present book has two origins, one very remote, the other nearer and more contingent. The first goes back to the time when I initiated my career as a neurophysiologist in Pisa, a small town with the advantage of a highly stimulating atmosphere created by two famous institutions, the University and the Scuola Normale Superiore. It came quite natur­ ally, then, while engaged in experimental work, to start brooding over the possible analogies between neurophysiological problems and those of the physical world. This slowly induced me to become less interested in the solution of the innumerable specific problems presented by the brain, and more in the general principles on which the brain function might be based. Certainly, for several years I had no clear idea of my purposes, or of the difficulties I could encounter in the task. However, it was clear enough that there ought to be a first, indispensable step: the search for methods of quantification of nervous activity, the sole way of allowing predictions about its behavior. At first, I somehow followed the fashion of the time, experiencing the impact of information theory on neurophysiology, but soon this was revealed as unsatisfactory, since it was only one aspect of the problem, and what I was interested in was not a way of describing the flow of information, but rather, the laws of the machinery.

• brain
• experiment
• information
• information theory
• nervous system
• neurophysiology
• neuroscience
• physiology
• time
• university

• Scuola Superiore di Studi Universitari e di Perfezionamento, Pisa, Italy

  Arnaldo Arduini

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