Modeling Neural Development

This original and timely collection is one of the first books to study neuraldevelopment using computational and mathematical modeling. Modeling provides precise and exact waysof expression, which allow us to go beyond the insights that intuitive or commonsense reasoningalone can yield. Most neural modeling focuses on information processing in the adult nervous system;Modeling Neural Development shows how models can be used to study the development of the nervoussystem at different levels of organization and at different phases of development, from molecule tosystem and from neurulation to cognition. The formal models described can give structure and meaningto complex phenomena and data, create and explore new hypotheses, and guide further research.Thebook's fourteen chapters follow loosely the chronology of neural development. Chapters 1 and 2 studythe very early development of the nervous system, discussing gene networks, cell differentiation,and neural tube development. Chapters 3-5 examine neuronal morphogenesis and neurite outgrowth.Chapters 6-8 study different aspects of the self-organization of neurons into networks. Chapters9-12 cover refinement of connectivity and the development of specific connectivity patterns.Chapters 13 and 14 focus on some of the functional implications of morphology and development.Thescience of studying neural development by computational and mathematical modeling is relatively new;this book, as Dale Purves writes in the foreword, "serves as an important progress report" in theeffort to understand the complexities of neural development.

Arjen van Ooyen is a researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research.