The Orbitofrontal Cortex

'The Orbitofrontal Cortex' explores a part of the brain that is important in human emotion, pleasure, decision-making, valuation, and personality. In ten chapters the book describes: · The OFC's connections; · Its neuron level neurophysiology which is essential for understanding what information is represented in the orbitofrontal cortex; · Functional neuroimaging of the orbitofrontal cortex; · How it relates to the previous and succeeding areas in brain processing; · The effects of damage to the orbitofrontal cortex which provides important evidence about its functions; · How the orbitofrontal cortex is involved in psychiatric disorders including depression, bipolar disorder, and autism; · How and what the orbitofrontal cortex computes; · Future directions in understanding the functions of the orbitofrontal cortex in health and disease. The book is unique in providing a coherent multidisciplinary approach to understanding the functions of one of the most interesting regions of the human brain, in both health and in disease, including depression. The Orbitofrontal Cortex will be valuable for those in the fields of neuroscience, neurology, psychology, psychiatry, biology, animal behaviour, economics, and philosophy, from the undergraduate level upwards.

1 - Introduction to the orbitofrontal cortex
2 - Orbitofrontal cortex: anatomy and connections
3 - Orbitofrontal cortex processing: neurophysiology and neuroimaging
4 - Orbitofrontal cortex damage effects in humans and other primates
5 - Orbitofrontal cortex output pathways: cingulate cortex, basal ganglia, and dopamine
6 - Orbitofrontal cortex and emotion
7 - The orbitofrontal cortex, depression, and other mental disorders
8 - The rodent orbitofrontal cortex
9 - Orbitofrontal cortex computations in a systems-level perspective
10 - Synthesis: the Roles of the Orbitofrontal Cortex

Professor Edmund T. Rolls performs full-time research at the Oxford Centre for Computational Neuroscience, and at the University of Warwick, and has performed research and teaching for many years as Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, and as Fellow and Tutor of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. His research links neurophysiological and computational neuroscience approaches to human functional neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies in order to provide a fundamental basis for understanding human brain function and its disorders.