Alain Berthoz - Böcker

The head carries most of the sensory systems that enable us to function effectively in our three-dimensional habitat. Without adequate head movement control, efficient spatial orientation and motor responses to visual and auditory stimuli could not be carried out. This is the most comprehensive and up-to-date account of the control of vertebrate head movements and its biomechanical and neural basis. It covers the entire spectrum of research on head-neck movements, ranging from the global description and analysis of a particular behavior to its underlying mechanisms at the level of neurotransmitter release and membrane biophysics. Physiological and anatomical aspects are stressed. The role of head movements in upright stance and other functional contexts within the vertebrate hierarchy is juxtaposed with the mechanisms of orienting behavior in a number of invertebrates. This reveals a plethora of solutions among different animal species for the problem of orientation in three-dimensional space. Although head movement control in humans figures prominently in this volume, the anatomical-physiological comparisons show that the human system is not unique. The conference from which this volume originated surveyed current research and theory on motor control mechanisms in the head-neck sensory-motor system. It was held in Fontainbleau, France on July 17-24, 1989. The book provides a broad panorama of methodological and theoretical approaches to the field of head movement control.

Truly international, this extensive text combines the efforts of eight laboratories from seven countries in investigating the study of problems of manipulation, orienting, and navigating in humans and animals. The novel, multidisciplinary approach places the study of multisensory control of movement in a three-dimensional frame, with reference to computer models and neuronal mechanisms. Of interest to researchers, clinicians, and advanced students in neuroscience, psychology, and neurology, the text also has important implications for researchers in biomedical engineering and robotics.

The neuroscientist Alain Berthoz experimented on Russian astronauts in space to answer these questions: How does weightlessness affect motion? How are motion and three-dimensional space perceived? In this erudite and witty book, Berthoz describes how human beings on earth perceive and control bodily movement. Reviewing a wealth of research in neurophysiology and experimental psychology, he argues for a rethinking of the traditional separation between action and perception, and for the division of perception into five senses.In Berthoz’s view, perception and cognition are inherently predictive, functioning to allow us to anticipate the consequences of current or potential actions. The brain acts like a simulator that is constantly inventing models to project onto the changing world, models that are corrected by steady, minute feedback from the world. We move in the direction we are looking, anticipate the trajectory of a falling ball, recover when we stumble, and continually update our own physical position, all thanks to this sense of movement.This interpretation of perception and action allows Berthoz, in The Brain’s Sense of Movement, to focus on psychological phenomena largely ignored in standard texts: proprioception and kinaesthesis, the mechanisms that maintain balance and coordinate actions, and basic perceptual and memory processes involved in navigation.

Groping around a familiar room in the dark, or learning to read again after a traumatic brain injury; navigating a virtual landscape through an avatar, or envisioning a scene through the eyes of a character—all of these are expressions of one fundamental property of life, Alain Berthoz argues. They are instances of vicariance, when the brain sidesteps an impasse by substituting one process or function for another. In The Vicarious Brain, Creator of Worlds, Berthoz shows that this capacity is the foundation of the human ability to think creatively and function in a complex world.Vicariance is often associated with proxies and delegates, but it also refers to a biological process in which a healthy organ takes over for a defective counterpart. Berthoz, a neuroscientist, approaches vicariance through neuronal networks, asking how, for example, a blind person can develop a heightened sense of touch. He also describes how our brains model physical reality and how we use these models to understand things that are foreign to us. Forging across disciplinary boundaries, he explores notions of the vicarious in paleontology, ethology, art, literature, and psychology.Through an absorbing examination of numerous facets of vicariance, Berthoz reveals its impact on an individual’s daily decision making and, more broadly, on the brain’s creation of worlds. As our personal and social lives are transformed by virtual realities, it is more crucial than ever before that we understand vicariance within our increasingly complex environment, and as an aspect of our own multiplying identities.

This book is based on a two-day symposium at the Paris Institute of Advanced Study titled "space-time geometries and movement in the brain and the arts".

This book is based on a two-day symposium at the Paris Institute of Advanced Study titled "space-time geometries and movement in the brain and the arts".

At the beginning of the 20th century, German biologist Jakob von Uexküll created the concept of "Umwelt" to denote the environment as experienced by a subject. This concept of environment differs from the idea of passive surroundings and is defined not just by physical surroundings, but is rather a "subjective universe", a space weighted with meaning. Today, neuroscience provides a new way to look at the brain’s capability to create a representation of the world. At the same time behavioural specialists are demonstrating that animals have a richer mental universe than previously known. Philosophical reflection thus finds itself with more experimental and objective data as well. Nearly a century after the publication of von Uexküll’s founding work ("Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere" was published in 1909), neurobiologists, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, ethologists, and philosophers revisit his mail concept at the light of modern science