The Mind within the Net by Manfred Spitzer

The Mind within the Net by Manfred Spitzer

How does the brain work? How do billions of neurons bring about ideas, sensations, emotions, and actions? Why do children learn faster than elderly people? What can go wrong in perception, thinking, learning, and acting? Scientists now use computer models to help us to understand the most private and human experiences. In The Mind Within the Net, Manfred Spitzer shows how these models can fundamentally change how we think about learning, creativity, thinking, and acting, as well as such matters as schools, retirement homes, politics, and mental disorders.

Neurophysiology has told us a lot about how neurons work; neural network theory is about how neurons work together to process information. In this highly readable book, Spitzer provides a basic, nonmathematical introduction to neural networks and their clinical applications. Part I explains the fundamental theory of neural networks and how neural network models work. Part I covers the principles of network functioning and how computer simulations of neural networks have profound consequences for our understanding of how the brain works. Part I covers applications of network models (e.g., to knowledge representation, language, and mental disorders such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease) that shed new light on normal and abnormal states of mind. Finally, Spitzer concludes with his thoughts on the ramifications of neural networks for the understanding of neuropsychology and human nature.

Manfred Spitzer is a psychiatrist at the University of Ulm, where he directs the Universitätsklinik für Psychiatrie, Psychotherapie, and Psychosomatik. He studied medicine, psychology, and philosophy in Freiburg, where he also completed his training as a Psychiatrist and earned his Habilitation für das Fach Psychiatrie (1989). He worked as an Oberarzt at the Psychiatrischen Universitätsklinik Heidelberg from 1990 until 1997. His research focus was on the intersection of cognitive neuroscience and psychiatry, as evidenced by two guest professorships at Harvard University and another research stay at the University of Oregon's Center for Cognition and Decision Sciences. He founded the Transferzentrum für Neurowissenschaften und Lernen (ZNL) at the University of Ulm in 2004. Spitzer was honored with the German Society for Psychiatrie and Nervenheilkunde's Research Prize and the Cogito-Foundation's Prize for Promoting the Collaboration of Geistes- and Naturwissenschafts for his scholarly work.