I have developed "tennis elbow" from lugging this book around the past four weeks, but it is worth the pain, the effort, and the aspirin. It is also worth the (relatively speaking) bargain price. Including appendixes, this book contains 894 pages of text. The entire panorama of the neural sciences is surveyed and examined, and it is comprehensive in its scope, from genomes to social behaviors. The editors explicitly state that the book is designed as "an introductory text for students of biology, behavior, and medicine," but it is hard to imagine any audience, interested in any fragment of neuroscience at any level of sophistication, that would not enjoy this book. The editors have done a masterful job of weaving together the biologic, the behavioral, and the clinical sciences into a single tapestry in which everyone from the molecular biologist to the practicing psychiatrist can find and appreciate his or

Principles of Neural Science

The organization of behavior: A neuropsychological theory

Most physiology and behavior of mammalian organisms follow daily oscillations. These rhythmic processes are governed by environmental cues (e.g., fluctuations in light intensity and temperature), an internal circadian timing system, and the interaction between this timekeeping system and environmental signals. In mammals, the circadian timekeeping system has a complex architecture, composed of a central pacemaker in the brain's suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) and subsidiary clocks in nearly every body cell. The central clock is synchronized to geophysical time mainly via photic cues perceived by the retina and transmitted by electrical signals to SCN neurons. In turn, the SCN influences circadian physiology and behavior via neuronal and humoral cues and via the synchronization of local oscillators that are operative in the cells of most organs and tissues. Thus, some of the SCN output pathways serve as input pathways for peripheral tissues. Here we discuss knowledge acquired during the past few years on the complex structure and function of the mammalian circadian timing system.

/pdf/the-mammalian-circadian-timing-system-organization-and-54vfplckht.pdf

The mammalian circadian timing system: organization and coordination of central and peripheral clocks.

The pacemaker role of the suprachiasmatic nucleus in a mammalian circadian system was tested by neural transplantation by using a mutant strain of hamster that shows a short circadian period. Small neural grafts from the suprachiasmatic region restored circadian rhythms to arrhythmic animals whose own nucleus had been ablated. The restored rhythms always exhibited the period of the donor genotype regardless of the direction of the transplant or genotype of the host. The basic period of the overt circadian rhythm therefore is determined by cells of the suprachiasmatic region.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/247/4945/975.full.pdf

Transplanted suprachiasmatic nucleus determines circadian period

Mammals synchronize their circadian activity primarily to the cycles of light and darkness in the environment. This is achieved by ocular photoreception relaying signals to the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the hypothalamus. Signals from the SCN cause the synchronization of independent circadian clocks throughout the body to appropriate phases. Signals that can entrain these peripheral clocks include humoral signals, metabolic factors, and body temperature. At the level of individual tissues, thousands of genes are brought to unique phases through the actions of a local transcription/translation-based feedback oscillator and systemic cues. In this molecular clock, the proteins CLOCK and BMAL1 cause the transcription of genes which ultimately feedback and inhibit CLOCK and BMAL1 transcriptional activity. Finally, there are also other molecular circadian oscillators which can act independently of the transcription-based clock in all species which have been tested.

https://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/9783642259494-c1.pdf?SGWID=0-0-45-1387410-p174273964

Molecular components of the mammalian circadian clock

Circadian rhythm of firing rate recorded from single cells in the rat suprachiasmatic brain slice

http://www.jbc.org/content/early/2002/10/04/jbc.M209130200.full.pdf

Interfering with nitric oxide measurements: 4,5-diaminofluorescein reacts with dehydroascorbic acid and ascorbic acid

Command neurons that cause rhythmic feeding behavior in the marine mollusc Pleurobranchaea californica have been identified in the cerebropleural ganglion (brain). Intracellular stimulation of single command neurons in isolated nervous systems, semi-intact prepartions, and restrained whole animals causes the same rhythmic motor output pattern as occurs during feeding. During this motor output pattern, action potentials recorded intracellularly from the command neurons occur in cyclic bursts that are phase-locked with the feeding rhythm. This modulation results from repetitive, alternating bursts of excitatory and inhibitory postsynaptic potentials, which are caused at least in part by synaptic feedback to the command neurons from identified classes of neurons in the feeding network. Central feedback to command neurons from the motor network they excite provides a possible general physiological mechanism for the sustained oscillation of neural networks controlling cyclic behavior.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/199/4330/798.full.pdf

Command neurons in Pleurobranchaea receive synaptic feedback from the motor network they excite

The metacerebral giant (MCG) neurons of the molluskPleurobranchaea have been analyzed using a wide range of methods (cobalt staining, histochemical, biophysical and electrophysiological) on several types of preparations (isolated nervous systems, semi-intact preparations, and behaving whole-animal preparations). The MCG is serotonergic. The bilaterally-symmetrical neurons have somata in the anterior brain. Each MCG neuron sends an axon out the ipsilateral mouth nerve of the brain and also into the ipsilateral cerebrobuccal connective which descends to the buccal ganglion. The descending axon sends one or more branches out most buccal nerves.

The role of the metacerebral giant neuron in the feeding behavior ofPleurobranchaea

Food stimuli normally excite the command neurons of Pleurobranchaea that cause feeding. In contrast, the same food stimuli selectively inhibit these neurons in specimens that have been trained to suppress feeding and withdraw from food by means of an avoidance conditioning paradigm consisting of paired food and conditional shock. Food stimuli excite the feeding command neurons of yoked control specimens exposed to unpaired food and shock, but inhibit the feeding command neurons of untrained specimens that have been satiated with food. These results suggest that the command neurons serve as a neural locus at which an animal's behavior is modulated by past experiences. These results also establish a neural correlate of behavioral plasticity, in the form of synaptic inhibition of the command neurons.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/199/4330/801.full.pdf

Rhanor Gillette

Papers

Circadian rhythm of firing rate recorded from single cells in the rat suprachiasmatic brain slice

Interfering with nitric oxide measurements: 4,5-diaminofluorescein reacts with dehydroascorbic acid and ascorbic acid

Command neurons in Pleurobranchaea receive synaptic feedback from the motor network they excite

The role of the metacerebral giant neuron in the feeding behavior ofPleurobranchaea

Neural correlate of behavioral plasticity in command neurons of Pleurobranchaea.