The neural structures of the brain exist to construct information. They do this by creating concepts that relate internal, personal need to external, environmental reality. Meaning is formed in the brain by neural network patterns that traverse these two structures of experience: the visceral nervous system and the somatic nervous system. How exactly does the brain get from constructing information to creating meaning, and what can this process tell us about the nature of experience? This book addresses both of these (...) questions, making an important contribution to both neuroscience and philosophy. (shrink)

Depue & Collins propose that extraversion should be separated from the impulsivity-constraint dimension of personality, and that the VTA dopamine system is the primary engine of extraversion. Although their focus is on personality traits, it may be useful to consider the evidence on psychological state changes, related both to affective arousal and to drug effects. This evidence shows that there are inherent relations between extraversion and impulsivity-constraint, and that there are influences of dopamine on impulsivity-constraint that are not consistent with (...) the Depue & Collins model. Increased positive affect leads to increased extraversion, and this is associated with more impulsivity and less constraint. The evidence on drug effects shows that greater dopaminergic control is associated with more constraint, and with anxiety and vigilance rather than positive affect. (shrink)

Considered in relation to the component brain systems of appraisal-emotion interactions, dynamical systems theory blurs the divisions that seem obvious in a psychological analysis, such as between arousal, emotion, and appraisal. At the same time, the component brain mechanisms can themselves be seen to be incomplete as units of analysis, making sense only in the context of the whole organism.

Metaphors, particularly the implicit ones, constrain imagination. If we think of the brain as a collection of centers of cognitive activations, lighting up on demand, then this becomes all we can imagine. By thinking of the cortex as propagating its functional work through physical waves, Nunez offers us a new, rich model for distributed representation. Now let's add real anatomy.

The important Hebbian architecture for language may not be the phonological networks of perisylvian cortex, but rather the semantic networks of limbic cortex. Although the high-frequency EEG findings are intriguing, the results may not yet warrant a confident theory of neural assemblies. Nonetheless, Pulvermüller succeeds in framing a comprehensive theory of language function in the literal terms of neuroanatomy and neurophysiology.