This ebook is the first authorized digital version of Kernighan and Ritchie's 1988 classic, The C Programming Language (2nd Ed.). One of the best-selling programming books published in the last fifty years, "K&R" has been called everything from the "bible" to "a landmark in computer science" and it has influenced generations of programmers. Available now for all leading ebook platforms, this concise and beautifully written text is a "must-have" reference for every serious programmers digital library.

As modestly described by the authors in the Preface to the First Edition, this "is not an introductory programming manual; it assumes some familiarity with basic programming concepts like variables, assignment statements, loops, and functions. Nonetheless, a novice programmer should be able to read along and pick up the language, although access to a more knowledgeable colleague will help."

The C programming language

It has been clear for almost two decades that cortical representations in adult animals are not fixed entities, but rather, are dynamic and are continuously modified by experience. The cortex can preferentially allocate area to represent the particular peripheral input sources that are proportionally most used. Alterations in cortical representations appear to underlie learning tasks dependent on the use of the behaviorally important peripheral inputs that they represent. The rules governing this cortical representational plasticity following manipulations of inputs, including learning, are increasingly well understood. In parallel with developments in the field of cortical map plasticity, studies of synaptic plasticity have characterized specific elementary forms of plasticity, including associative long-term potentiation and long-term depression of excitatory postsynaptic potentials. Investigators have made many important strides toward understanding the molecular underpinnings of these fundamental plasticity processes and toward defining the learning rules that govern their induction. The fields of cortical synaptic plasticity and cortical map plasticity have been implicitly linked by the hypothesis that synaptic plasticity underlies cortical map reorganization. Recent experimental and theoretical work has provided increasingly stronger support for this hypothesis. The goal of the current paper is to review the fields of both synaptic and cortical map plasticity with an emphasis on the work that attempts to unite both fields. A second objective is to highlight the gaps in our understanding of synaptic and cellular mechanisms underlying cortical representational plasticity.

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CORTICAL PLASTICITY: From Synapses to Maps

The organization of the projection from the cerebral cortex to the striatum in the rat

Cortical pathways to the mammalian amygdala

A self-produced tactile stimulus is perceived as less ticklish than the same stimulus generated externally. We used fMRI to examine neural responses when subjects experienced a tactile stimulus that was either self-produced or externally produced. More activity was found in somatosensory cortex when the stimulus was externally produced. In the cerebellum, less activity was associated with a movement that generated a tactile stimulus than with a movement that did not. This difference suggests that the cerebellum is involved in predicting the specific sensory consequences of movements, providing the signal that is used to cancel the sensory response to self-generated stimulation.

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Central cancellation of self-produced tickle sensation.

We have used single unit recording techniques to map the representation of cutaneous and joint somatosensory modalities in the primary somatosensory (SI) cortex of both anesthetized and awake rats. The cytoarchitectonic zones within the rat SI were divided into the following main categories: (1) granular zones (GZs)--areas exhibiting koniocortical cytoarchitecture (i.e., containing dense aggregates of layer IV granule cells), (2) perigranular zones (PGZs)--narrow strips of less granular cortex surrounding the GZs, and (3) dysgranular zones (DZs)--large areas of dysgranular cortex enclosed within the SI. The narrow strip between the SI and the rostrally adjacent frontal agranular cortex was termed the "transitional zone" (TZ). Initial computer-based studies of the properties of cutaneous receptive fields (RFs) in SI showed that, although there were differences in response threshold, adaptability, frequency response, and overall RF size and shape of adjacent neurons, the size and location of the "centers" of the RFs were quite constant and were similar to those seen in multiple unit recordings. The same was true of RFs of single neurons recorded through different anesthetic states. The body representation in SI was first mapped by determining single unit and unit cluster RFs within a total of 2,170 microelectrode penetrations in barbiturate-anesthetized rats. Cutaneous RFs in the GZs were quite discrete. Thus, a single, finely detailed, continuous map of the cutaneous periphery was definable within the GZs themselves. Only the forepaw had a double representation. RFs in the PGZs were larger and more diffuse, but since they covered roughly the same skin areas as the RFs in the most closely adjacent GZs, they fit into the same body map. Neurons in the DZs were unresponsive to any sensory stimuli in the anesthetized animal. In chronically implanted, freely moving, awake animals cutaneous RFs were larger and more volatile than in the anesthetized, but the accuracy of the map was clearly preserved by the fact that the locations of the RF centers (which often must be defined quantitatively) were unchanged. The PGZs and DZs in the awake animals exhibited a multimodal convergence of cutaneous and joint movement RFs within single vertical penetrations, or even on single neurons. Directionally specific and bilateral cutaneous RFs were also observed in the DZs. It was concluded the DZs are more associational or integrative areas within the SI, but they could not be shown to comprise a distinct and separate body representation.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Mapping the body representation in the SI cortex of anesthetized and awake rats

Progesterone alters GABA and glutamate responsiveness: a possible mechanism for its anxiolytic action

Somatic sensory transmission to the cortex during movement: Gating of single cell responses to touch

Quantitative techniques were used to demonstrate cortical layer differences in cutaneous receptive fields (RF's) in the rat SI cortex. Two- and three-dimensional (2-D and 3-D) RF maps were constructed showing the responsiveness of single neurons to standardized punctate stimulation of each of a matrix of points on the skin or the mystacial vibrissa pad. These allowed a visualization not only of the overall sizes of such RF's, but also their shape and “response profile”. Initial experiments showed that the sizes and response profiles of such RF's were similar whether they were mapped by sinusoidal mechanical vibration of skin, punctate touch, or direct intracutaneous electrical stimulation. This method was used to quantitatively determine distoproximal lengths of RF's of single units recorded at different depths in the forepaw area of the SI cortex. Plots of these RF lengths as a function of cortical depth showed that the smallest RF's were found in the granular layers (IV and deep III). RF's up to double that size were found in supragranular layers, and up to triple that size in infragranular layers. 3-D maps of RF's in the granular layers showed sharp central response peaks surrounded by very steep dropoffs to the RF boundaries. In the whisker areas, granular layer RF's were typically circular in shape and contained from 1–4 whiskers. By contrast, in supragranular layers they were often elongated in shape, and were oriented along rows or columns of whiskers. RF's in layer V resembled large, high plateaus, often supporting clearly separated peaks. RF's mapped in the fore- and hindpaw areas were similar, but, even in the granular layers, were often slightly elongated along the limb axis. In all regions of the SI, both the locations and shapes of the granular layer RF's appeared to be conserved as subsets of other more topographically heterogeneous RF's encountered elsewhere in the column. These findings may correlate with patterns of axonal connectivity in the rat SI.

John K. Chapin

Papers

Mapping the body representation in the SI cortex of anesthetized and awake rats

Progesterone alters GABA and glutamate responsiveness: a possible mechanism for its anxiolytic action

Somatic sensory transmission to the cortex during movement: Gating of single cell responses to touch

Laminar differences in sizes, shapes, and response profiles of cutaneous receptive fields in the rat SI cortex.

Somatic sensory transmission to the cortex during movement: Phasic modulation over the locomotor step cycle