Suggested reading

We are often asked to suggest reading materials to learn more about neuroscience. The field of neuroscience is so large that a general introduction requires looking at many different sources. New findings are published in academic journals which are both hard to read and hard to get access to if you don’t have a university affiliation.

Here are two readily available books that a dedicated reader might want to look at which are relevant to the topics in this appendix.

Stuart, Greg, Spruston, Nelson, Häusser, Michael, Dendrites, second edition

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2008)

This book is a good source on everything about dendrites. Chapter 16 discusses the non-linear properties of dendrite segments used in the HTM cortical learning algorithms. It is written by Bartlett Mel who has done much of the thinking in this field.

Mountcastle, Vernon B. Perceptual Neuroscience: The Cerebral Cortex

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998)

This book is a good introduction to everything about the neocortex. Several of the chapters discuss cell types and their connections. You can get a good sense of cortical neurons and their connections, although it is too old to cover the latest knowledge of dendrite properties.

Appendix B: A Comparison of Layers in the Neocortex and an