Computationalneuroscienceisthetheoreticalstudyofthebraintouncovertheprinciplesandmechanismsthatguidethedevelopment,organization,informationprocessing,andmentalfunctionsofthenervoussystem.Althoughnotanewarea,itisonlyrecentlythatenoughknowledgehasbeengatheredtoestablishcomputationalneuroscienceasascientificdisciplineinitsownright.Giventhecomplexityofthefield,anditsincreasingimportanceinprogressingourunderstandingofhowthebrainworks,therehaslongbeenaneedforanintroductorytextonwhatisoftenassumedtobeanimpenetrabletopic.TheneweditionofFundamentalsofComputationalNeurosciencebuildonthesuccessandstrengthsofthepreviouseditions.Itintroducesthetheoreticalfoundationsofneurosciencewithafocusonthenatureofinformationprocessinginthebrain.Thebookcoverstheintroductionandmotivationofsimplifiedmodelsofneuronsthataresuitableforexploringinformationprocessinginlargebrain-likenetworks.Additionally,itintroducesseveralfundamentalnetworkarchitecturesanddiscussestheirrelevanceforinformationprocessinginthebrain,givingsomeexamplesofmodelsofhigher-ordercognitivefunctionstodemonstratetheadvancedinsightthatcanbegainedwithsuchstudies.Eachchapterstartsbyintroducingitstopicwithexperimentalfactsandconceptualquestionsrelatedtothestudyofbrainfunction.AnadditionalfeatureistheinclusionofsimpleMatlabprogramsthatcanbeusedtoexploremanyofthemechanismsexplainedinthebook.Anaccompanyingwebpageincludesprogramsfordownload.Thebookwillbetheessentialtextforanyoneinthebrainscienceswhowantstogettogripswiththistopic.
