Another View of the Brain System

226 Pages·2009·7.91 MB·English

by  Toshifumi Kumai

ANOTHER VIEW OF THE BRAIN SYSTEM

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ANOTHER VIEW OF THE BRAIN SYSTEM

TOSHIFUMI KUMAI
AND
SHIBUKAWA YOSHIYUKI

Nova Biomedical Books
New York
Copyright © 2009 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

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Contents

Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
Chapter I Development of the Nervous System 1
Chapter II Electrical Properties of Neurons 25
Chapter III Synaptic Processes and Neurotransmitters 63
Chapter IV General Organization of the Human CNS 97
Chapter V Sensory and Motor Nervous System 131
Chapter VI Dual Properties of the Human Nervous System 165
Index 199

Preface

Our intelligent life deeply depends on the highly evolved nervous system of the brain,
and the brain is one of most exciting themes in science. We, T. Kumai and Y. Shibukawa,
have studied the control mechanism of the central nervous system in masticatory movements:
Kumai, using electromyogram (EMG) and electroencephalogram (EEG), and Shibukawa,
using magnetoencephalogram (MEG). At the same time, we have lectured neurophysiology
to students at Matsumoto Dental University and at Tokyo Dental College, respectively. In our
lectures we have received many questions about neurophysiology from our students,
including questions that specialists in neuroscience had never considered. Although we
sometimes found it difficult to answer satisfactorily, we were rewarded with rich viewpoints
as well as interesting suggestions for understanding or investigating the mechanism of the
nervous system.
Recent advances in neuroscience, especially those using new electrical and biochemical
technologies, have been great. Yet the students' questions made us aware that many obscure
aspects yet remain in the field of neuroscience. This awareness was the impetus for our
decision to publish this book, even though there are already many excellent publications on
neuroscience.
Much of the volume of this book is made up of descriptions of common established
knowledge in neurophysiology which we have presented to students, whereas short columns,
entitled "A Different Angle”, are interspersed here and there in each chapter. We should state
at the outset that some of these "A Different Angle" columns were based on students’
questions, while others were based on ideas that came to us in the process of preparing
lectures. So, with few exceptions, we do not provide experimental proofs in the discussions in
these columns. We are, however, convinced that many of readers of this book may have had
questions like those described in "A Different Angle" at an early stage of their study of
neuroscience, but which may have been forgotten. Thus, we hope that everybody, including
specialists in neuroscience, will to read this book without formality. We would be very glad if
readers are inspired by this small book and feel a deeper interest in neuroscience.

Acknowledgments

In preparing this book we have been supported by many experts. First of all, the most
difficult thing for us as Japanese in writing this sort of book is how to express the subtle
contents in English. We would like to offer great thanks to David Carlson, Professor of
English at Matsumoto Dental University, for his kind and continuous support of our writing
throughout this book. Next, we are not experts in physics or chemistry, yet neuroscience
contains a fair amount of these two subjects. In particular, the sections about the mechanism
of membrane potential generation in Chapter 2, and the molecular mechanism of ion channels
in Chapter 3 were written with the helpful support of Tadayoshi Tanaka, Lecturer in physics
at Matsumoto Dental University, and Naoyuki Takahashi, Professor of biochemistry at
Matumoto Dental University. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the help and suggestions of
these two experts in expressing difficult content, as well as recognizing the students at
Matsumoto Dental University and Tokyo Dental College for giving us many useful hints for
this publication.
In the preparation of this book we drew on the work of many authors. In particular, we
referred to the following words: Chapter 1, "An introduction to Embryology" (Balinsky, B.I.,
1970, McGraw-Hill.) and "Foundations of Embryology" (Bradley, M.P. and Carlson, B.M.,
1974, W.B. Saunders Co.); Chaper 2, "The conduction of the nervous impulse" (Hodgikin,
A.L., 1964 Liverpool University Press), "Membranes, Ions, and Impulses (Translated in
Japanese)" (Cole, K.S., 1969, Yoshioka Shoten), and "Biophysics of Neurons (in Japanese)"
(Miyagawa, H. and Inoue, M., 2003, Maruzen Inc.); Chapter 3, "The Physiology of
Synapses" (Eccles, J.C., 1964, Springer Verlag), "From Neuron to Brain (3rd ed.)" (Nicholls,
J.G., Martin, A.R. and Wallace, B.G., 1992, Sinauer Associates Inc.), and "Ion channels of
excitable membranes (3rd ed.)" (Hille, B., 2001, Sinauer Associates Inc.); Chapter 4,
"Human Brain: An Introduction to Its Functional Anatomy (4th ed.)" (Nolte, J., 1999, Mosby,
Inc.), and " Netter’s Atlas of Human Neuroscience" (Felten, D.L. and Józefowicz, R., 2003,
Medimedia Inc.); Chapter 5, "Neurophysiology (2nd ed.)" (Shephered, G. M., 1988, Oxford
University Press), "Principles of Neural Science (3rd ed.)" (Kandel, E.R., Schwartz, J.H. and
Jessell, T.M., 2000, McGraw-Hill), and "Neural Anatomy: text and atlas (3rd ed.)" (Martin,
J.H., 2003, McGraw-Hill); and Chapter 6, "Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain (3rd ed.)"
(Bear, M.F., Connors, B.W. and Paradiso, M.A., 2007, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins) and
"Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind (2nd ed.)" (Gazzaniga, M.S., Ivry, R.B.
and Mangun, G.R., 2002, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.). It is not too much to say that our