Friedrich G. Barth – författare

Biological sensory systems, fine-tuned to their specific tasks with remarkable perfection, have an enormous potential for technical, industrial, and medical applications. This applies to sensors specialized for a wide range of energy forms such as optical, mechanical, electrical, and magnetic, to name just a few. This book brings together first-hand knowledge from the frontiers of different fields of research in sensing. It aims to promote the interaction between biologists, engineers, physicists, and mathematicians and to pave the way for innovative lines of research and cross-disciplinary approaches. The topics presented cover a broad spectrum ranging from energy transformation and transduction processes in animal sensing systems to the fabrication and application of bio-inspired synthetic sensor arrays. The various contributions are linked by the similarity of what sensing has to accomplish in both biology and engineering.

Sensory perception: mind and matter aims at a deeper understanding of the many facets of sensory perception and their relations to brain function and cognition. It is an attempt to promote the interdisciplinary discourse between the neurosciences and psychology, which speaks the language of cognitive experiences, and philosophy, which has been thinking about the meaning and origin of consciousness since its beginning. Leading experts contribute to such a discourse by informing the reader about exciting modern developments, both technical and conceptual, and by pointing to the big gaps still to be bridged. The various chapters provide access to scientific research on sensory perception and the mind from a broad perspective, covering a large spectrum of topics which range from the molecular mechanisms at work in sensory cells to the study of the unconscious and to neurophilosophy.