"Gateway to Memory is an exciting and badly needed text that integrates computational and neurobiological approaches to memory. Authoritative and clearly written, this book will be valuable for students and researchers alike." -- Daniel L. Schacter, Professor and Chair of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of Searching for Memory
This book is for students and researchers who have a specific interest in learning and memory and want to understand how computational models can be integrated into experimental research on the hippocampus and learning. It emphasizes the function of brain structures as they give rise to behavior, rather than the molecular or neuronal details. It also emphasizes the process of modeling, rather than the mathematical details of the models themselves.
The book is divided into two parts. The first part provides a tutorial introduction to topics in neuroscience, the
psychology of learning and memory, and the theory of neural network
models. The second part, the core of the book, reviews computational
models of how the hippocampus cooperates with other brain structures
-- including the entorhinal cortex, basal forebrain, cerebellum, and
primary sensory and motor cortices -- to support learning and memory in both animals and
humans. The book assumes no prior knowledge of computational modeling
or mathematics. For those who wish to delve more deeply into the
formal details of the models, there are optional "mathboxes" and
appendices. The book also includes extensive references and
suggestions for further readings.
More endorsements:
"This book is a very user-friendly introduction to the world of
computer models of the brain, with an emphasis on how the hippocampus
and associated areas mediate memory. The authors take the time to
explain in detail the rationale for making models of the brain, and
then use their own work, as well as related neurobiological and
computational research, to illustrate the emerging successes of this
approach to understanding brain function." -- Howard
Eichenbaum, Laboratory of Cognitive Neurobiology, University
Professor and Professor of Psychology, Boston University
"If you purchase only one book at the turn of the new millenium to
teach you about the latest computational models of memory and amnesia,
let it be Gateway to Memory. Gluck and Myers display
their extraordinary ability to simplify difficult concepts so that a
broad readership can appreciate the breadth and depth of the rapid
advances in the cognitive neuroscience of memory being made by the
best and brightest of computational modelers." -- Jordan
Grafman, Ph.D., Chief, Cognitive Neuroscience Section,
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
"Gateway to Memory is a valuable addition to the
introductory texts describing neural network models of learning and
memory. The early chapters present abstract models of brain and
learning in an intuitively appealing style that is accessible to lay
readers as well as advanced students of network modeling. Later
chapters, relevant to experts as well as novices, advance cutting-edge
ideas and models that are tested closely by experimental results on
learning. A particular virtue is the close interchange the authors
maintain throughout between predictions of competing models and
experimental results from animal and human learning." --
Gordon H. Bower, Department of Psychology, Stanford
University
"This delectable book lays out Gluck and Meyers' comprehensive theory
of hippocampal function in easily digestible steps. Readers without a
computational modeling background will find it accessible and
intriguing. Practicing modelers will be inspired." --
David S. Touretzky, Center for the Neural Basis of
Cognition, Carnegie Mellon University
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