Neuroscience, Memory, and Language: Decade of the Brain, vol. 1.

Broadwell RD, Judd LL, Murphy DC, eds. Washington, DC 20402-9328, Library of Congress, 1995, hardback, 160 pp, illus, $15.94.

The National Institute of Mental Health and the Library of Congress combined forces to sponsor a decade-long series of semiannual symposia. The presentations were designed to provide prominent scientists with the opportunity to communicate the latest findings in the neurosciences to the general public. This text is divided into three sections containing the presentations at the one-day meetings in July 1991, February 1992, and September 1992. Each symposium is also available on videocassette.

The introductory section of the book provides the text of President Bush's Proclamation 6158--Decade of the Brain; information on the lecture series that is covered in this and subsequent volumes; and a brief, five-page review of the major advances in the neurosciences from antiquity to our current status.

The first section explores neuroscience and the philosophy of the mind. Two of the essays explore using a computer as an analogy for the function of the brain. Another essay presents information on the use of positron-emission tomography (PET) to image functioning of the living brain. Color figures contain PET maps of changes in local blood flow in the normal human brain during the processing of words. Readers are introduced to the comparison process that is used by researchers to establish which regions of the brain are active during different language-related functions. This information prepares the reader for presentations in the final section.

Learning and memory is the theme of the next group of presentations. The cellular basis for the storage of short-term and long-term memories is explained based on the concepts of synaptic plasticity and neuronal structural changes. Memory is described as localized in different parts of the brain that are responsible for storage of different aspects of the information. The authors suggest potential clinical applications for the expanding knowledge of the neural basis of learning and memory. Several of the essays contain overlapping information.

The final grouping relates to language and the brain. The use of PET methods to image language areas of the brain is revisited. Information gathered from electrical stimulation mapping on awake individuals during surgical interventions for epilepsy is described. The process by which cognitive neuropsychologists explore the functional organization of language within the brain by accumulating information from individuals with specific brain lesions is characterized. Therapists who have dealt with individuals with spatial deficits as a result of right-hemisphere damage will be interested in the dis- cussion of the impact of left- and right-hemisphere damage on sign language. Producing and understanding sign language requires utilization of spatial and temporal distinctions. Signers who are deaf and incur left-hemisphere damage have sign language aphasia. Signers who are deaf and incur right-hemisphere lesions do not demonstrate problems with the spatial aspects of sign language even when demonstrating impairment on other spatial cognitive tasks.

Because the general public is the target audience for this book, the research studies that form the basis for the essay are described in a simple and direct manner. The authors lead the reader through the sequential thought processes that have generated the current understanding of the brain's function. Implications for the future are depicted.

This text provides the reader with intriguing insights into specific areas of the neurosciences. Given the topics of the three symposia, the book has limited application as a text in an entry-level curriculum. Some of the chapters could form the basis for engaging discussions in a graduate seminar. Therapists who are interested in the thought processes underlying progress in these areas should find this book interesting.

Rebecca E Porter, PhD, PT Indiana University Indianapolis, Ind

Dr Porter is Associate Professor and Coordinator of Graduate Studies in the physical therapy program at Indiana University. Her teaching and clinical practice are in the areas of neuroscience and neurological physical therapy.