George Adelman

This is the sixth annual anthology of the Neuroscience Research Program Work Session reports, which have appeared in the issues of the Neurosciences Research Program Bulletin for 1971-1972. It continues the coverage of “hot” areas in the neurosciences begun in 1966 with the first volume of this series. The current volume includes core research topics from a wide range of the neurosciences (neurophysiology, cell biology, neurochemistry, and animal behavior) in five critical summaries of research. These Work Session reports evolved from five 2 ½-day meetings of outstanding specialists held at M.I.T.'s NRP center. Each serves as a state-of-the-art report and indicator of research directions for neuroscientists of many disciplines. It provides, as well, a succinct and assimilable introduction for the newcomer. The reports, written by the Work Session chairmen, have had the benefit of updating by the Work Session participants and the editorial contributions of NRP writers. The extensive bibliographies were selected by the experts themselves for relevance and quality.

This is the fifth annual anthology of the Neurosciences Research Program Work Sessions reports which have appeared in the issue of the Neurosciences Research Program Bulletin for 1970-1971. It continues the coverage of “hot” areas in the neurosciences begun in 1966 with the first volume of this series. The current volume includes core research topics from a wide range of the neurosciences (neurophysiology, cell biology, neurochemistry, and animal behavior) in five critical summaries of research. These work Session reports evolved from five 2 1/2-day meetings of outstanding specialists held at M.I.T.'s NRP center. Each serves as a state-of-the-art report and indicator of research directions for neuroscientists of many disciplines. It provides, as well, a succinct and assimilable introduction for the newcomer. The reports, written by the Work Session chairman, have had the benefit of updating by the Work Session participants and the editorial contributions of NRP writers. The extensive bibliographies were selected by the experts themselves for relevance and quality.

This is the fourth annual anthology of the Neurosciences Research Program Work Session reports which have appeared in the issues of the Neurosciences Research Program Bulletin for 1969-1970. It continues the coverage of “hot” areas in the neurosciences begun in 1966 with the first volume of this series. The current volume included core research topics from a wide range of the neurosciences (neurophysiology, cell biology, neurochemistry, and animal behavior) in five critical summaries of research. These Work Sessions reports evolved from five 21/2-day meetings of outstanding specialists held at M.I.T.'s NRP center. Each serves as a state-of-the-art report and indicator of research directions for neuroscientists of many disciplines. It provides, as well, a succinct and assimilable introduction for the newcomer. The reports, written by the Work Session chairman, have had the benefit of updating by the Work Sessions participants and the editorial contributions of NRP writers. The extensive bibliographies were selected by the experts themselves for relevance and quality.

W. Ross Adey in “slow Electrical Phenomena in the Central Nervous System,” reviews the latest advances in the knowledge of neuroelectrical activities of the brain and the question of how they are related to the propagation of the neuronal impulse. The Detlev Ploog-Theodore Melnechuk review, “Primate Communication,” brings together the findings of behavioral psychologists, neurophysiologists, and psycholinguists in an attempt to find a common base for studies of verbal and nonverbal communication. The article by Francis O. Schmitt and Frederick E. Samson, Jr., “brain Cell Microenvironment,” explores and reviews the role of intercellular macromolecules that impinge on the neuronal membrane and affect electrochemical processing of information. Lloyd Guth's “Trophic Effects of Vertebrate Neurons,” integrates old and new data on limb regeneration, muscle atrophy, and taste-bud renewal, phenomena that seem to depend on the nonelectrical activities of nerve cells. The last section, Donald M. MacKay's “Evoked Brain Potentials as Indicators of Sensory Information Processing,” examines the results of extensive research on the electrical signals evoked from the brain by sensory stimulation and the various techniques used to study them.

This third anthology of recent interdisciplinary surveys, generated collectively by experts, again provides both the student and professional neuroscientist with critical distillations and reviews of core topics in the study of the brain and behavior. The subjects are drawn from a broad intellectual domain, for the nervous system operates hierarchically, and man's eventual understanding of it will have to integrate studies at several levels – behavioral, brain-as-organ, circuit, cellular, subcellular, molecular, and even submolecular.

This volume contains five full-scale Work Session reports as well as a synopsis of molecular neurobiology. The first section, “Biology of Drives,” presents the work of a field that until fairly recently was considered a branch of theoretical psychology. However, Valenstein's report roots the subject in neurophysiology and included the work of investigators in the field of ethology and neurochemistry as well. Ebert's essay, “Gene Expression,” covers a field in which the findings are still to be applied specifically to the nerve cell. “Axoplasmic Transport,” written by Barondes, surveys today's investigations into a phenomenon first observed years ago by Paul A. Weiss (who contributes an essay in that chapter) – the flow of substances down the axons of neutrons. Schmitt and Samson, in “Neuronal Fibrous Proteins,” bring together current microstructural and neurochemical studies concerned with the fibrous organelles of the nerve cell, the microtubule and the neurofilaments, probably the basis of the much-studied classical neurofibrils. In the fifth section, Perkel and Bullock review the entire area of “Neural Coding” and, based on the contributions of their Work Session, systematically survey actual and possible nervous system codes. The final section, “Frontiers of Molecular Neurobiology,” by Schmitt, Bullock, Lehninger, and Whittaker provides a comprehensive, yet succinct survey of trends and research opportunities in the relatively young field of molecular neurobiology.

Contents 1. Biology of Drives, Elliot S. Valenstein • 2. Gene Expression, James D. Ebert • 3. Axoplasmic Transport, Samuel H. Barondes • 4. Neuronal Fibrous Proteins, Francis O. Schmitt and Frederick E. Samson, Jr. • 5. Neural Coding, Donald H. Perkel and Theodore H. Bullock • 6. Symposium on Frontiers in Molecular Neurobiology, Francis O. Schmitt, Theodore H. Bullock, Albert L. Lehninger, and Victor P. Whittaker

This second anthology of Work Session symposia contains summary reports on various key topics in the neurosciences, taken from the most recent issues of the Neurosciences Research Program Bulletin. These rigorous and interdisciplinary reports review the state of the state of the art of subjects fundamental to the understanding of the physical bases of mind and memory.

Students and specialists alike are provided with orientation and conceptual insights into present findings and future directions of research. Each of the six reports in this volume epitomizes the research results and ideas, as reported at a recent Work Session, of 15 to 20 of the world's leaders in their field of the neurosciences. Written by the Work Session Chairmen with the aid of the NRP Staff, these reports have benefited from review and revision by Work Session participants.

The first annual collection of reports from a series in great demand by scientists and students the world over, these studies were previously available only in the necessarily limited editions of the Neurosciences Research Program Bulletin. The authoritative reports review the state of the art in fundamental disciplines central to the mind-brain-molecule problem. They are unique in the neuroscientific literature for their brevity, selectivity, and authority – the results of their unusual origin. Each is the report of a symposium at which a dozen of the world's leaders in a basic field surveyed its most important facts and ideas in a critical but synthetic mood. Eight such symposia, called Work Sessions are conducted each year by the Neurosciences Research Program (N.R.P.) – a new international and interdisciplinary organization of scientists and scholars seeking to elucidate the biological mechanisms of memory and thought. To fuel the theoretical and experimental labors of its 32 Associates, and of the thousands of scientists for whom they stand surrogate, the upshot of these Work Sessions is gleaned in the form of reports that summarize, integrate, and evaluate the latest thinking of experts at the vanguards of research. Written by the work Session chairmen and the N.R.P. staff of scientists, writers, editors, and librarians; then revised by the participants; finally augmented with a selective bibliography of their recommended reading – these reports bypass the literature explosion by drawing on the author of seminal literature to achieve consensus in seeing the pattern in the bits, in telling the signal from the noise.

Despite the sophistication and currency of their data and concepts, these reports are written and edited so as to communicate across traditional disciplinary barriers since their original audience – the 32 N.R.P. Associates who constitute the “faculty” of this “invisible college” – represents almost as many scientists. The nervous system operates hierarchically, and man's eventual understanding of it will have to integrate studies at several levels – behavioral, brain-as-organ, circuit, cellular, subcellular, molecular, and even submolecular. The integration provided by this new series is a beginning.