Assembly of the Executive Mind Evolutionary Insights and a Paradigm for Brain Health

Over 90% of the brain is concerned with higher cortical functions, yet understanding of syndromes, functions, and measurements remains unchartered. This valuable handbook illuminates brain function, natural environment and human function, by delving into the interdisciplinary study. Multifaceted in its perspective, this book demonstrates bi-directionality of information exchange between disciplines. This book weaves around key case reports, series, control studies and cohort studies from cognitive neurology registries, to present the most current, practical research. Gaining appreciation for the fundamental formation and assembly of the supervisory area of the brain will inform an understanding of conditions and behavior for neuroscience professionals, clinical brain scientists and medical students in neuroscience, worldwide. Authored by a leading expert in cognitive neurology, this book guides the reader through the evolutionary, or neuro-archeological, aspects of how the frontal lobes and their circuitry were assembled, drawing key insights into form, function and treatment.

Introduction; 1. Progressively larger brains evolved ever since the vertebrate-invertebrate divide; 2. The profound increase in primate gray matter growth; 3. Exponential white matter growth and major fiber tract systems assembly; 4. Cellular and molecular changes; 5. The core frontal systems; 6. Major software upgrading, enhanced working memory (EWM): assembled in Southern Africa during a time of extreme environmental hardship; 7. Unravelling of these networks in neurological conditions – nature's reductionism; 8. Most neurological diseases present as networktopathies with significant diaschisis or remote disconnection phenomena; 9. An exquisitely sensitive prefrontal cortex evolved that is vulnerable to the vicissitudes of daily rhythms; 10. Implications for treatment and management: a network based approach; 11. Sense of self disorders; 12. Implications for you and society.

Michael W. Hoffmann trained at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, under the tutelage of Phillip Tobias, a doyen of human origins. Subsequent neurological training in stroke occurred at Columbia University in New York, followed by several academic positions in the United States, including Associate Dean of Academic Assessment at the University of South Florida. He is currently a Professor of Neurology, University of Central Florida and director of the stroke program and cognitive neurology at the Orlando VA Medical Center. He specializes in stroke and cognitive neurology and has written two books, Brain Beat (2015) and Cognitive Conative and Behavioral Neurology (2016).