Overview

How do the billions of connections between neurons in our brain change as we learn and remember? This is the story of the discovery and the discoverer of synaptic pruning, the process of synapse elimination central to making us who we are. Taking the reader from Professor Peter Huttenlocher's childhood in wartime and post-war Germany to his emigration to the US to reunite with his mother and the launch and progress of a career in medicine and research, we uncover the motivations and process of scientific discovery that led to an unexpected leap in our understanding of the human brain. Decades after the discovery, the importance of synaptic pruning to early learning, autism, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease and other conditions are now in the process of being uncovered.

Full Product Details

Author:   Anna Huttenlocher (University of Wisconsin, Madison)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 16.30cm , Height: 1.40cm , Length: 24.00cm
Weight:   0.400kg
ISBN:  

9781009267052

ISBN 10:   1009267051
Pages:   150
Publication Date:   06 July 2023
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments; Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Discovering Synaptic Pruning; 3. Else, Peter's Mother; 4. Richard, Peter's Father, and Peter's Uncle Fritz; 5. Greiz: Kriegskinder (Children of War); 6. In Braubach, after the War; 7. University of Buffalo and Philosophy; 8. Harvard Medical School; 9. Understanding Sleep and Consciousness: Research at NIH; 10. Entering the Cognitive Revolution: Neuroscience and Cognitive Psychology; 11. Physician First, Scientist Second?; 12. Comparative Brain Regions and Synapse Formation; 13. Stimulating Progress on Developmental Brain Disorders; 14. Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Schizophrenia: A Role for Synaptic Pruning?; 15. Early Childhood Education; 16. Peter and Janellen's Collaboration; 17. Microglia and the Mechanisms of Synaptic Pruning; 18. Looking Forward: Being a Physician and a Scientist; 19. Parkinson's Disease and Berlin; 20. Auf Deutsch; Reflections at the End; Glossary; Index.

Reviews

'Anna Huttenlocher has written a fascinating book and an important biography of her father. [It] poses some deep questions about where science comes from, and provides some useful suggestions about how we might promote a healthier scientific society in the future.' Christopher Walsh, Lancet Neurology

Author Information

Physician scientist Anna Huttenlocher is a Professor at University of Wisconsin, Madison and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. Her laboratory studies cell migration in inflammation and cancer. She directed the MD-Ph.D. program at UW-Madison and is a committed mentor to the next generation of physicians and biomedical scientists.

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