The psychobiology of sensory coding William R. Uttal.

First published in New York by Harper & Row Publisher, 1973.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Format: Hardcover This was a landmark book for its time. It requires an undergrad course or similar background in general psychobiology. Focusing primarily on sensory systems, this book will give you a more rigorous understanding of neural mechanisms, including such concepts as receptor physiology and receptor transduction, receptor types and categories, basic coding principles such as lateral inhibition and sharpening mechanisms in general, convergence and divergence in neural systems, spatial vs. frequency coding, spatial vs. temporal coding, center/surround mechanisms, threshold mechanisms, frequency vs. bandwidth, and many other important topics. Uttall's approach was an important precursor to David Marr's computational approach. In fact, I recommend reading Marr's book on vision after this one if your interest is vision. (I discuss this further below). The chapter on somatosensation was especially important since most students emphasize vision because it seems more interesting and glamorous. Uttal makes clear the difference between specific and more general principles of encoding. For example, he discusses the many interesting similarities between audition and somatosensation since both systems deal with pressure and mechanical displacement oriented mechanisms. This is a book that should be read by every intermediate student of the brain sciences. It would also be a good book for the layman with the necessary background whose only experience with psychobiology is these popular books on the theory of consciousness. The problem with those books isn't so much that they're bad science books, it's that you're starting with this abstract, high level theory without having a good background in the underlying brain mechanisms. That sort of top-down approach is fine for the reader with the requisite background, but for most readers gives a distorted picture of how the brain really works because the brain itself does not work in such a top-down fashion but really works from the bottom up, combining and cascading outputs to build more complex and sophisticated processes.