By Alain Berthoz

At the start of the 20 th century, German biologist Jakob von Uexküll created the concept that of "Umwelt" to indicate the surroundings as skilled by way of a subject matter. this idea of atmosphere differs from the belief of passive atmosphere and is outlined not only through actual atmosphere, yet is very a "subjective universe", an area weighted with that means. this present day, neuroscience offers a brand new option to examine the brain’s power to create a illustration of the area. while behavioural experts are demonstrating that animals have a richer psychological universe than formerly recognized. Philosophical mirrored image therefore reveals itself with extra experimental and aim info to boot. approximately a century after the booklet of von Uexküll’s founding paintings ("Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere" was once released in 1909), neurobiologists, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, ethologists, and philosophers revisit his mail thought on the gentle of recent science

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Additional resources for Neurobiology of ''Umwelt'': How Living Beings Perceive the World (Research and Perspectives in Neurosciences)

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In the adult brain, no new long-range connections are formed and, under normal conditions, no breaking of connections occurs except at very great age. In conclusion, evolution can be considered as a cognitive process through which the evolving organisms acquire knowledge about those features of the world whose consideration facilitates survival and reproduction. This knowledge is probably not adapted to support the understanding of the deeper structure of the world that assures coherence across scales.

These oscillations may be reset by sensory stimuli, and phase comparison revealed the presence of a 12- to 13-msec phase shift between the rostral and caudal poles of the brain (Llin´as and Ribary 1992). These gamma oscillations display a high degree of spatial organization and thus may be a candidate mechanism for the production of temporal conjunction of rhythmic activity over a large ensemble of neurons. From a neuronal point of view. the mechanism by which gamma oscillation may be generated has been studied at the level of single neurons and of neuronal circuits.

2006; Lamm and Decety 2008; Urgesi et al. 2007), environmental forms (in the parahippocmapus; Epstein et al. 1999), etc. Another important aspect of the brain’s specialization that participates in the construction of our Umwelt is the mirror system (Rizzolatti 2005). Mirror neurons respond to specific gestures made either by the subject or by others, indicating that the brain contains a repertoire of predetermined gestures that are, as von Uexk¨ull predicted, meaningful for each species. 5 Vicariousness Von Uexk¨ull insists upon the fact that living organisms often carry out the same action in many very different ways.

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