Arthropod Brains

Arthropod Brains PDF

Author: Nicholas James Strausfeld

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2012-01-02

Total Pages: 849

ISBN-13: 0674046331

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In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin proposed that an ant’s brain, no larger than a pin’s head, must be sophisticated to accomplish all that it does. Yet today many people still find it surprising that insects and other arthropods show behaviors that are much more complex than innate reflexes. They are products of versatile brains which, in a sense, think. Fascinating in their own right, arthropods provide fundamental insights into how brains process and organize sensory information to produce learning, strategizing, cooperation, and sociality. Nicholas Strausfeld elucidates the evolution of this knowledge, beginning with nineteenth-century debates about how similar arthropod brains were to vertebrate brains. This exchange, he shows, had a profound and far-reaching impact on attitudes toward evolution and animal origins. Many renowned scientists, including Sigmund Freud, cut their professional teeth studying arthropod nervous systems. The greatest neuroanatomist of them all, Santiago Ramón y Cajal—founder of the neuron doctrine—was awed by similarities between insect and mammalian brains. Writing in a style that will appeal to a broad readership, Strausfeld weaves anatomical observations with evidence from molecular biology, neuroethology, cladistics, and the fossil record to explore the neurobiology of the largest phylum on earth—and one that is crucial to the well-being of our planet. Highly informative and richly illustrated, Arthropod Brains offers an original synthesis drawing on many fields, and a comprehensive reference that will serve biologists for years to come.

Arthropod Brain

Arthropod Brain PDF

Author: A. P. Gupta

Publisher: Wiley-Interscience

Published: 1987-09-29

Total Pages: 616

ISBN-13:

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The definitive textbook and reference guide to the arthropod brain. The material is arranged logically in three sections. Section I, on evolution, includes a discussion on the presence of a fourth component, tetrocerebrum in the insect brain in addition to the three commonly recognized parts, and the evolutionary trends in the central and mushroom bodies in major arthropod groups. A section on structure and function includes detailed ultrastructural studies of the brain as well as studies of the mechanoreceptory centers, peripheral sensory coding and sensilla function, and antennal information processing. Also examines biochemical topics such as bioamines and mucosubstances, their respective roles in brain function, and various techniques of brain research.

The Neurobiology of an Insect Brain

The Neurobiology of an Insect Brain PDF

Author: Malcolm Burrows

Publisher:

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 712

ISBN-13:

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This book reviews the advances in insect neurobiology in the last two decades and highlights the contributions of this field to our understanding of how nervous systems function in general. By concentrating largely on one insect, the locust, this book unravels the mechanisms by which a brain integrates the vast array of sensory information to generate movement and behavior. The author describes the structure and development of the insect brain, detailing the cellular properties of insect neurons and the way they are altered by neurosecretors. Insect movements are fully analyzed at the cellular level to illustrate particular features of integrative processing. Richly illustrated, this volume emphasizes how the brain of an insect can be an informative model for defining basic neural mechanisms, shared by other animals and man.

Arthropod Biology and Evolution

Arthropod Biology and Evolution PDF

Author: Alessandro Minelli

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-04-11

Total Pages: 530

ISBN-13: 3642361609

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More than two thirds of all living organisms described to date belong to the phylum Arthropoda. But their diversity, as measured in terms of species number, is also accompanied by an amazing disparity in terms of body form, developmental processes, and adaptations to every inhabitable place on Earth, from the deepest marine abysses to the earth surface and the air. The Arthropoda also include one of the most fashionable and extensively studied of all model organisms, the fruit-fly, whose name is not only linked forever to Mendelian and population genetics, but has more recently come back to centre stage as one of the most important and more extensively investigated models in developmental genetics. This approach has completely changed our appreciation of some of the most characteristic traits of arthropods as are the origin and evolution of segments, their regional and individual specialization, and the origin and evolution of the appendages. At approximately the same time as developmental genetics was eventually turning into the major agent in the birth of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), molecular phylogenetics was challenging the traditional views on arthropod phylogeny, including the relationships among the four major groups: insects, crustaceans, myriapods, and chelicerates. In the meantime, palaeontology was revealing an amazing number of extinct forms that on the one side have contributed to a radical revisitation of arthropod phylogeny, but on the other have provided evidence of a previously unexpected disparity of arthropod and arthropod-like forms that often challenge a clear-cut delimitation of the phylum.

Identified Neurons and Behavior of Arthropods

Identified Neurons and Behavior of Arthropods PDF

Author: Graham Hoyle

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2012-12-12

Total Pages: 594

ISBN-13: 9781468469691

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Identified Neurons and Behavior of Arthropods presents for the larger audience the papers delivered at a symposium of the same title. I organized this symposium so that a few of the many who owe him a great scientific debt could honor Professor C. A. G. (Kees) Wiersma upon his attaining the age of 70 and retiring from the California Institute of Technology. Everyone of the participants publicly acknowledged his debt to Kees Wiersma, but in a sense there was no need to do so, because the research reported spoke for itself. Seldom in a rapidly developing branch of modem science has all of the recent progress so clearly stemmed from the pioneering work of a single figure. But in this subject, the role of identified nerve cells in determining behavior, Wiersma stood virtually alone for 30 years. He it was who first showed that indi vidual nerve cells are recognizable and functionally important and have "per sonalities" of their own.

Plants and the Human Brain

Plants and the Human Brain PDF

Author: David O. Kennedy

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014-01-09

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0199914028

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We're all familiar with the idea that plant-derived chemicals can have an impact on the functioning of the human brain. Most of us reach for a cup of coffee or tea in the morning, many of us occasionally eat some chocolate, some smoke a cigarette or take an herbal supplement, and some people use illicit drugs. We know a great deal about the mechanisms by which the psychoactive components of these various products have their effects on human brain function, but the question of why they have these effects has been almost totally ignored. This book sets out to describe not only how, in terms of pharmacology or psychopharmacology, but more importantly why plant- and fungus-derived chemicals have their effects on the human brain. The answer to this last question resides, in part, with the terrestrial world's two dominant life forms, the plants and the insects, and the many ecological roles the 'secondary metabolite' plant chemicals are trying to play; for instance, defending the plant against insect herbivores whilst attracting insect pollinators. The answer also resides in the intersecting genetic heritage of mammals, plants, and insects and the surprising biological similarities between the three taxa. In particular it revolves around the close correspondence between the brains of insects and humans, and the intercellular signaling pathways shared by plants and humans. Plants and the Human Brain describes and discusses both how and why phytochemicals affect brain function with respect to the three main groups of secondary metabolites: the alkaloids, which provide us with caffeine, a host of poisons, a handful of hallucinogens, and most drugs of abuse (e.g. morphine, cocaine, DMT, LSD, and nicotine); the phenolics, including polyphenols, which constitute a significant and beneficial part of our natural diet; and the terpenes, a group of multifunctional compounds which provide us with the active components of cannabis and a multitude of herbal extracts such as ginseng, ginkgo and valerian.

Nerve Cells and Insect Behavior

Nerve Cells and Insect Behavior PDF

Author: Kenneth David Roeder

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780674608016

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Insects are ideal subjects for neurophysiological studies. This classic volume relates the activities of nerve cells to the activities of insects, something that had never been attempted when the book first appeared in 1963. In several elegant experiments, Roeder shows how stimulus and behavior are related through the nervous system.

Atlas of an Insect Brain

Atlas of an Insect Brain PDF

Author: N.J. Strausfeld

Publisher: Springer

Published: 1976

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13:

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This Atlas is addressed not only to specialists of Arthropod neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, but to anyone interested in the general structure of brain. Originally, it was planned to encompass several species of insects in order to show similarities and differences between them: but in practice such an under taking would have demanded a volume three times the present size, an exercise both prohibitive in cost and in material. And had it been accomplished it would have merely concussed all but the most persevering readers. Since my intention is not to stun but to enlighten, I have consequently restricted the main contents of this book to one species, Musca domestica, the common house fly. The Atlas attempts to illustrate the main neuropil regions of the fused cephalic ganglia as well as to define the main tracts and many single neurons which contribute to their structure. Since the accounts of FU)GEL in 1876, VIALLANES in 1884 and KENYON in 1896 and 1897, all three workers veritable Ptolemys of insect neuroanatomy, only the description of POWER comes near to modernizing our knowledge of the general dispositions of the main neuropil masses. And as far as I am aware, apart from the now classic work of reference by BULLOCK and HORRIDGE: Structure and Function in the Nervous System of Invertebrates, there is no contemporary work which lists, in a concise way, the various terminologies used for brain regions.

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