Giorgio A. Ascoli – författare

An examination of the stunning beauty of the brain''s cellular form, with many color illustrations, and a provocative claim about the mind-brain relationship.

The human brain is often described as the most complex object in the universe. Tens of billions of nerve cells-tiny tree-like structures—make up a massive network with enormous computational power. In this book, Giorgio Ascoli reveals another aspect of the human brain: the stunning beauty of its cellular form. Doing so, he makes a provocative claim about the mind-brain relationship.

If each nerve cell enlarged a thousandfold looks like a tree, then a small region of the nervous system at the same magnified scale resembles a gigantic, fantastic forest. This structural majesty—illustrated throughout the book with extraordinary color images—hides the secrets behind the genesis of our mental states. Ascoli proposes that some of the most intriguing mysteries of the mind can be solved using the basic architectural principles of the brain. After an overview of the scientific and philosophical foundations of his argument, Ascoli links mental states with patterns of electrical activity in nerve cells, presents an emerging minority opinion of how the brain learns from experience, and unveils a radically new hypothesis of the mechanism determining what is learned, what isn''t, and why. Finally, considering these notions in the context of the cosmic diversity within and among brains, Ascoli offers a new perspective on the roots of individuality and humanity.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on Brain and Health Informatics, BHI 2016, held in Omaha, USA, in October 2016.

The 37 revised full papers, including two workshop papers from BAI 2016, presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. The papers are organized in topical sections on cognitive and computational foundations of brain science; investigations of human information processing systems; brain big data analytics, curation and management; new methodologies for brain and mental health; brain-inspired intelligence and computing; brain and artificial intelligence.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Brain Informatics, BI 2024, which was held in Bangkok, Thailand, during December 13–15, 2024.

The 35 full papers and 17 workshop papers presented in this book were carefully reviewed and selected from 126 submissions. These papers have been organized in the following topical sections:

Pat I- Cognitive and Computational Foundations of Brain Science; Investigations of Human Information Processing Systems; Brain Big Data Analytics, Curation and Management; Informatics Paradigms for Brain and Mental Health Research; Brain-Machine Intelligence and Brain-Inspired Computing.

Part II- The International Workshop on Generative AI Empowers Brain Signal Processing (GAIEBSP 2024); The International Workshop on Web Intelligence meets Brain Informatics (WImeetsBI 2024); The 4th Workshop on Environmental Adaptation and Mental Health (EAMH 2024); The International Workshop on Application of Artificial Intelligence and Innovative Technologies in Brain Informatics and Health (AAIITBIH 2024); The International Workshop on Reconstruction and Modeling of the Brain at the Single-Cell Level (RMBSCL 2024); The International Workshop on Mesoscopic Brain-wide Connectivity Atlas in Brainsmatics (MBCAB 2024); The 4th Special Session on Explainable Artificial Intelligence for Unveiling the Brain: From the Black-Box to the Glass-Box (XAIB 2024); The International Workshop on Elucidation of Mechanistic Information using Neuroimaging for Psychiatric Disorders (EMINPD 2024).