"Ce livre est la synthèse de plusieurs décennies de réflexion sur le beau. Il verse au débat une nouvelle dimension ; celle de la connaissance scientifique à la fois de la contemplation de l'oeuvre d'art et de sa création. Avec la science du cerveau, ou neuroscience, un champ nouveau s'ouvre à la recherche sur l'oeuvre d'art. On peut désormais imaginer une neuroscience de l'art. Comprendre comment notre cerveau intervient dans la relation de l'être humain à l'oeuvre d'art devient envisageable et prometteur. C'est le chemin que je vous propose ici." J.-P. C.

La beauté dans le cerveau

Que se passe-t-il dans le cerveau de l'artiste lorsque celui-ci crée? Quels mécanismes régissent l'activité cérébrale au moment de la contemplation d'un tableau? D'où vient cette étrange et si puissante émotion, le plaisir esthétique ? Peut-on l'expliquer ? Longtemps la création artistique est demeurée un mystère. Depuis une vingtaine d'années, cependant, grâce à l'apport des neurosciences et de la psychologie cognitive, loin de s'épaissir, le mystère peu à peu se dissipe. Explorateur du cerveau et grand collectionneur, c'est à une fantastique « aventure philosophique » au cour du processus créatif que nous convie Jean-Pierre Changeux, dans ce livre illustré par des chefs-d'ouvre peu connus de l'art français et étranger.

Raison et plaisir

Le cerveau est une machine qui traite l'information, l'enregistre, donne des ordres à la manière d'un ordinateur. Toutes ses fonctions, aussi nobles soient-elles, résultent exclusivement de l'assemblage d'éléments cellulaires, de leurs interactions ainsi que des signaux reçus du monde extérieur par le canal des organes des sens. Mais quelle méthode suivre pour pénétrer dans une mécanique si désespérante par sa difficulté que d'aucuns, fort éminents, n'hésitent pas à la reléguer dans la catégorie des « boîtes noires » ?

Communications cellulaires - Leçon inaugurale prononcée le 16 janvier 1976

L'homme Neuronal

Comprendre les processus neurobiologiques nécessaires à la conscience est une étape décisive pour la compréhension de l'acquisition des connaissances. Ce qui paraît vrai à quelqu'un ne l'est pas forcément aux yeux de quelqu'un d'autre, en toute conscience. Celui qui ment le sait, pas nécessairement celui qui reçoit le message. Comment se fait-il que la capacité à dire le vrai soit un trait propre à l'espèce humaine ? Quelle est la relation qui peut exister entre des faits ou objets du monde extérieur et des objets de pensée, des états intérieurs, produits par notre cerveau ? Comment cet accord est-il possible ? Comment s'établit-il ? Comment est-il mis à l'épreuve ? Comment évolue-t-il ? Comment valider l'adéquation de nos connaissances à la réalité du monde sinon en les communiquant par le langage et en les soumettant à un débat critique ? N'est-ce pas là l'origine d'une activité spécialisée que nos sociétés ont développée dans leur quête de vérité: la science ? Telles sont les grandes questions auxquelles Jean-Pierre Changeux, à partir des données les plus récentes de la recherche sur le cerveau, apporte un éclairage nouveau dans cet Homme de vérité.

L'homme de Vérité

Sont ici réunis cinq grands entretiens avec des figures de l'effervescence théorique d'une époque où la psychanalyse conversait à bâtons rompus avec les autres disciplines : Foucault, Dumézil, Duby, côté philosophie, anthropologie, histoire ; Changeux et Thom, côté biologie, épistémologie. On y rencontre le scientifique aux prises avec son objet et ce qui résiste à sa saisie. On interroge, on ferraille. L'enquête est sérieuse, le ton enjoué. Les voix vibrent, l'énonciation est fulgurante. Echanges et frottements font saillir les articulations, les jointures impossibles et l'inattendu. Le projet d'une nouvelle science de l'homme fait l'épreuve de ses failles. Ce réel indissoluble est la matière de ces entretiens menés par Ornicar ? , revue du Champ freudien.

Foucault - Duby - Dumézil - Changeux - Thom - Cinq grands entretiens au champ freudien

Un événement intellectuel : l'auteur de L'Homme neuronal, brillant neurologue représentant du matérialisme, dialogue avec l'un des meilleurs mathématiciens contemporains, médaille Fields en 1982. Les objets mathématiques sont-ils réels ? Les mathématiques sont-elles un langage universel ? La science conduit-elle à une éthique ? La morale peut-elle reposer sur des fondements naturels, sur des principes universels comparables à ceux des mathématiques ?Jean-Pierre Changeux et Alain Connes sont tous deux professeurs au Collège de France.

Matière à pensée

What happens in the mind of the creator, the composer, when he creates, is still unknown. It is this "mystery" that this book aims to shed light on. Does artistic creation involve specific intellectual and biological processes? Can we get as close as possible to its mechanism to understand how a composer, a musician, a conductor, chooses to put together this and that note, to make this and that rhythm succeed one another, to bring out something new, to produce beauty, to arouse emotion? Is it possible to understand what happens in the composer's brain when he writes Le Sacre du printemps or Le Marteau sans maître ? Trying to build a neuroscience of art is the challenge of this book, which is the result of a debate between Jean-Pierre Changeux, the neurobiologist, who made the brain the main focus of his research, and Pierre Boulez, the composer, for whom the theoretical questions related to his art, music, have always been essential. A deeply new book. An intellectual event. Conductor, composer, founder of Ircam, Pierre Boulez is one of the greatest creators of the 20th century. Also a music theorist, he held the "Invention, Technique and Language" chair at the Collège de France for nearly twenty years. Honorary professor at the Collège de France, member of the Academy of Sciences, Jean-Pierre Changeux is one of the greatest contemporary neurobiologists. Philippe Manoury is a composer and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego.

Enchanted Neurons - The Brain and Music

The purpose of this book is to give a clear and straightforward account of the remarkable properties of the nicotinic receptor for acetylcholine, a membrane protein involved in chemical transduction in the nervous system that is also the target of a widely used drug, nicotine. This molecule also happens to be the first pharmacological receptor and ion channel ever to have been identified. Jean-Pierre Changeux has played a leading role with Stuart J. Edelstein in the investigation of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and allosteric proteins. The aim of this book is not only to review the most recent experimental and theoretical breakthroughs in the study of the nicotinic receptor, but also to give the reader a sense of the intellectual excitement and adventure that accompanied the various stages of discovery. This richly illustrated volume furnishes an exceptional opportunity for scientists and students to follow the course of a major advance in our understanding of the molecular basis of brain functions. Jean-Pierre Changeux is honorary professor at the Collège de France and at the Institut Pasteur, a member of the French Academy of Sciences. In addition to L'Homme neuronal [Neuronal Man] he is the author of Raison et Plaisir and L'Homme de vérité. He is also co-author, with Alain Connes, of Matière à penser [Conversations on Mind, Matter, and Mathematics] and, with Paul Ricour, of La Nature et la Règle [What Makes Us Think?]. All thought-provoking works. Stuart J. Edelstein is Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Geneva and a foreign associate member of the Academy of Sciences. "The nicotinic acetylcholine receptor has served for many decades as the prototype for neurotransmitter receptors. Acetylcholine was the first neurotransmitter shown to be involved in the fonction of the mammalian brain and its nicotinic receptor the first receptor to be characterized. Jean-Pierre Changeux is the indisputable pioneer in this field. This volume summarizes with great lucidity the history of a highly important topic in neuroscience." Paul Greengard, Nobel laureate in Medecine - The Rockefeller University "From the molecule to thought itself - an extraordinary journey! Changeux and Edelstein are uniquely qualified to relate this utterly fascinating story, whose philosophical implications are no less important than the scientific research underlying them." Jean-Marie Lehn, Nobel laureate in Chemistry - ISIS-Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg "The human brain is as much a chemical as an electrical network. Its intricacy and sophistication set it apart from any known technical device. The groundbreaking papers by Monod, Jacob, Wyman, and Changeux in the 1960s on chemical regulation and control were eye-opening for all us who were doing experimental research in ths field, and they have turned out to be crucial for understanding biological evolution and learning in a broad sense. Since then Changeux and Edelstein have achieved international fame for their work on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, amply documented in this masterful account." Manfred Eigen, Nobel laureate in Chemistry - Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen "One hesitates to call this book a monograph, for despite its comprehensive treatment of a complex subject it is not meant solely for specialized readers. In concentrating on a single class of neuroreceptors, the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, it seeks to draw out general principles which apply more widely. It will therefore be welcomed not only by serious workers and students in the field of neurobiology, but also by anyone interested in the broader field of neuroscience." Sir Aaron Klug OM FRS, Nobel laureate in Chemistry - University of Cambridge "Changeux and Edelstein have provided a concise yet highly comprehensive account of perhaps the prototypical neurotransmitter complex, the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor. The story of how the roles played by this signal transduction system in nicotine dependence, learning, memory, and the processes of cognition came to be unraveled is an exciting saga, both beautiful and profound. A lovely historico-scientific document." Floyd E. Bloom, Professor Emeritus - The Scripps Research Institute "Changeux and Edelstein describe a classically Cartesian process of scientific investigation that leads to a most non-Cartesian conclusion. Having elucidated the mechanisms of action and interaction by which the various elements that make up the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor operate throughout the nervous system, from neuromuscular junctions to the brain itself, the authors turn to the role of thse structures and mechanisms in supporting cognition and giving access to consciousness - thus parting ways with Descartes and the view that the mind is able somehow to exist independently of the body. A work of truly remarkable erudition and insight." Roger Guillemin, Nobel laureate in Medicine - Salk Institute for Biological Studies "This book is unlike any recent scientific book. It is more like a forty-year research meeting in one of the world's most creative neurobiology laboratories-an intellectual tour de fortcheat surveys the developmental trends and achievements of twentieth-century neuroscience in molecular, structural, and functional terms. The book therefore becomes an extraordinary educational saga, moving from Sir Henry Dale's pharmacology of nicotine to genetic diseases involving mutations of the cation channel function of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. Research into these archetypal proteins has been carried out by pharmacologists, biochemists, molecular biologists, electrophysiologists, behavioral scientists, and geneticists, with Jean-Pierre Changeux and his coworkers participating in every aspect of this remarkable inquiry. Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors are the workhorse of the fast actions of the chemical signal acetylcholine, abundantly transmitted in both the peripheral and the central nervous system. Thanks to their variable sub- unit composition they come in many flavors, mediating control of voluntary muscles in the periphery and helping to regulate reward functions, cognition, and memory in the brain. This rich functionality leads the authors to describe models of neuromuscular junction development as well a global workspace model of cognitive function and its role in effortful learning. The nicotinic acetylcholine receptor was among the first ligand-gated ion channels to be sequenced and studied by patch-clamp methods. It has been the object of neurobiological research in England, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States, with contributions of equal weight being made by many teams of researchers over a number of decades, all carefully chronicled and explained by the authors. This book is to be highly recommended to young scientists who want to discover into how many fields a single protein molecule can take them-from snake venom action to myasthenia gravis, addiction, learning, and schiz- ophrenia-if they are willing patiently to learn new research techniques rather than specialize in a single method or instrument. To investigate the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor in all its aspects requires a Renaissance mind, and it is exactly this that Changeux and Edelstein have brought to bear on one of the most studied topics in neuroscience of the last century." TAMAS BARTFAI, Chair and Professor, Department of Neuropharmacology The Scripps Research Institute

La beauté dans le cerveau

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