The Neuroscience of Language - On Brain Circuits of Words and Serial Order - Grand Format

How is language organized in the human brain ? Synthesizing ideas from both neuroscience and linguistics, The Neuroscience of Language provides results of brain activation studies, data from patients with brain lesions, and hints from computer simulations of neural networks to help answer this question. The activation of cortical areas, linguistic deficits following disease of the brain, and the outcome of neural network simulations are explained on the basis of neuroscientific principles.
The putative neurobiological basis of language is spelled out in terms of neuronal mechanisms, nerve cells and their connections. The neuronal mechanisms discussed range from the function of single nerve cells to the interaction of large distributed cell assemblies. Nerve cells are viewed towork together in discrete functional webs that cooperate in processing sounds, words, and their serial order.
Mechanisms of serial order are considered that range from delay line architecture to synfire chains, and from sequence detectors to global activity dynamics in the brain. Discrete language units and serial order relationships are modeled by networks whose putative neuroanatomical basis is specified in great detail. The linguistic emphasis is on phonemes, words, and morpho-syntatic rules. Introductory chapters present basic knowledge relevant in the cognitive neuroscience of language, focusing on neuronal structure and function, cognitive brain processes, classic aphasia research, modern neuroimaging and neurophysiology of language, neural networks, and theories of syntax.
The essence of the work is contained in chapters on words in the brain, serial order mechanisms, and neuronal grammar. Throughout, excursuses illustrate the functioning of brain models of language, some of which are simulations accessible as animations on the book's accompanying web site. This self-contained text and reference puts forth the first explanatory theory of language at the level of neuronal circuits that is well grounded in empirical research while also addressing questions about language structure and the rules so characteristic of human communication.
The Neuroscience of Language bridges the gap between linguistics and brain science, appealing to students and researchers in neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, and computational modeling.