Neuroscience has been developed very rapidly during the last few years. The increase of studies of Neuroscience allows to obtaining valuable information of the activity of the brain. These studies lead to design new equipment or features in existing ones to monitor the activity of the brain. For example, latest anesthesia machines have been upgraded with two new features called EEG (electroencephalography) and BIS (Bispectral index) to monitor the activity of the brain during the use of anesthesia on the operation. These features allow also to measuring the spontaneous electrical activity of the cortex of the brain during external stimulation by the sensor of the machine to acquire data to help for evaluating the condition of the patient. In Kuwait, many hospitals have been using the technology of neuroscience as equipment including the anesthesia machines have been upgraded with the neuroscience technology features
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The Nervous system is the master controlling and communicating system of the body. It is responsible for all behavior- every thought, action, and emotion reflects its activity. Its cells communicate by electrical signals, which are rapid, specific, and usually cause almost immediate responses. The nervous system has three overlapping functions: (1) It uses its millions of sensory receptors to monitor changes occurring both side and outside the body. These changes are called Stimuli and gathered information is called sensory input. (2) It processes and interprets the sensory input and decides what should be done at each moment- a process called integration. (3) It causes a response by activating effector organs, our muscles or glands; the response is called motor output. An example will illustrate how these functions work together.
There are billions of neurons in the nervous system that conduct messages in the form of nerve impulses, electrical signals, from one part of the body to another. These impulses form networks, neural network, which control the integration process in the brain. Neurons represent and transmit information by firing sequence of impulses in various temporal patterns. To understand the system it’s important to mention that coding and networks are formed using these impulses through intelligent process. Networks controls the link between stimuli and response, and coding is formed through train of impulses that is fired through the link. Therefore both coding and networks can explain the process of sending and receiving information.
Coding in this manner has two parts. First neural encoding which refer to the map from stimuli to response, and second neural decoding which refers to the reverse map. Both neural encoding and decoding are stochastically modeled through basic identity of probability theory which is called Bayes theorem.
This will lead to a further investigation to use Shannon theory in order to explain how the code is initiated. The information theory helps us understand the framework for quantifying the ability of a coding scheme or communication channels. Shannon information theory can be used to determine how much a neural response tells both us and, presumably, the animal in which the neuron lives, about stimuli.
On the other hand neurons are also connected through networks in the brain, which control the integration process and explain how the nerve impulses move. There are two main networks that controls the neurons in the brain; linear or nonlinear Feed-forward, and recurrent networks. These networks are constructed to transform information from one coordinate system to another, selectively amplify input signals, integrate inputs over extended period of time, select between competing inputs, sustain activity in the absence of input, exhibit gain modulation, allow simple decoding, and act as content addressable memories.
Future researches are contributed using engineering techniques in fields such as control system and communication to understand the neural coding through understanding the basic neural signal. Since the nervous system controls all human systems through codes that is been sent through neurons, then breaking the neural code and trying to understand the functionality of integration can solve many physiological questions. Hopefully in the future the neural code will be decoded which then controlling the nervous system will be possible, and new treatment can be discovered.
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