L'homme Neuronal

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.

- The Brain and Music

Will understanding our brains help us to know our minds? Or is there an unbridgeable distance between the work of neuroscience and the workings of human consciousness? In a remarkable exchange between neuroscientist Jean-Pierre Changeux and philosopher Paul Ricoeur, this book explores the vexed territory between these divergent approaches--and comes to a deeper, more complex perspective on human nature.Ranging across diverse traditions, from phrenology to PET scans and from Spinoza to Charles Taylor, What Makes Us Think? revolves around a central issue: the relation between the facts (or "what is") of science and the prescriptions (or "what ought to be") of ethics. Changeux and Ricoeur ask: Will neuroscientific knowledge influence our moral conduct? Is a naturally based ethics possible? Pursuing these questions, they attack key topics at the intersection of philosophy and neuroscience: What are the relations between brain states and psychological experience? Between language and truth? Memory and culture? Behavior and action? What is a mental representation? How does a sign relate to what it signifies? How might subjective experience be constructed rather than discovered? And can biological or cultural evolution be considered progressive? Throughout, Changeux and Ricoeur provide unprecedented insight into what neuroscience can--and cannot--tell us about the nature of human experience.Changeux and Ricoeur bring an unusual depth of engagement and breadth of knowledge to each other's subject. In doing so, they make two often hostile disciplines speak to one another in surprising and instructive ways--and speak with all the subtlety and passion of conversation at its very best.

Ce qui nous fait penser. La nature et la règle

Dialogue entre un mathématicien et un neurobiologiste sur les liens qui peuvent exister entre le cerveau et les objets mathématiques, débouchant sur les rapports entre science et éthique.

Matière à Pensée

?"Toute activité se laisse discerner et définir dans la mesure où elle prend forme, où elle inscrit sa courbe dans l'espace et le temps. La vie agit essentiellement comme créatrice de formes. La vie est forme et la forme est le mode de la vie", Henri Focillon. Formes de la géométrie et du cosmos, formes de la vie et de la pensée, formes architecturales, musicales et littéraires, formes fixes ou métamorphoses : le concept de forme est omniprésent dans les sciences et dans les arts. C'est à une exploration de cette notion de forme que le Collège de France a consacré, en octobre 2011, son colloque multidisciplinaire de rentrée : sa définition en philosophie chez Platon et Aristote, ses applications en mathématiques et en astrophysique, en chimie et en biologie, ses conséquences en psychologie et en linguistique, en anthropologie, en droit et dans les arts. Ces débats ont été aussi l'occasion de se tourner vers des pensées où elle joue un rôle particulièrement important, comme le structuralisme de Claude Lévi-Strauss ou l'histoire de l'art d'André Chastel. Jean-Pierre Changeux est professeur honoraire au Collège de France, chaire de Communications cellulaires. Il a dirigé la publication de trois colloques précédents du Collège de France : La Vérité dans les sciences (2003), Gènes et culture (2003) et L'Homme artificiel (2007). Contributions d'Antoine Compagnon, Claude Debru, Stanislas Dehaene, Mireille Delmas-Marty, Philippe Descola, Anne Fagot-Largeault, Marcel Hénaff, Michel Hochmann, Jean-Jacques Hublin, François-Bernard Mâche, Jean-François Mangin, Jean-Claude Pecker, Jacques Reisse, John Scheid, Jesper Svenbro.

La vie des formes et les formes de la vie

Quel est le lien entre le monde physique et le cerveau ? Les objets mathématiques existent-ils indépendamment du cerveau de l'homme ou sont-ils seulement le produit de l'activité cérébrale ? Les mathématiques sont-elles universelles ? Mais le sont-elles au point de nous servir à communiquer avec d'hypothétiques habitants d'autres planètes ? L'éthique, qui nous fait distinguer le bien du mal, peut-elle être fondée sur des principes aussi universels que ceux des mathématiques, qui transcenderaient la diversité des cultures et l'intolérance des idéologies ? La morale peut-elle reposer sur des fondements naturels, qu'il faudrait rechercher dans le fonctionnement du cerveau humain en société ?
Telles sont quelques-unes des questions essentielles instruites dans ce livre original et stimulant. Par la qualité de ses auteurs et la fécondité de leur réflexion, il constitue un événement exceptionnel.
Alain Connes, médaille Fields, est titulaire de la chaire d'Analyse et Géométrie au Collège de France.
Jean-Pierre Changeux, auteur de L'Homme neuronal, est titulaire de la chaire de Communications cellulaires au Collège de France.
Tous deux sont membres de l'Académie des sciences.

Matière à pensée

« Toute activité se laisse discerner et définir dans la mesure où elle prend forme, où elle inscrit sa courbe dans l'espace et le temps. La vie agit essentiellement comme créatrice de formes. La vie est forme, et la forme est le mode de la vie » (Henri Focillon). Formes de la géométrie et du cosmos, formes de la vie et de la pensée, formes architecturales, musicales et littéraires, formes fixes ou métamorphoses : le concept de forme est omniprésent dans les sciences et dans les arts. C'est à une exploration de cette notion de forme que le Collège de France a consacré en octobre 2011 son colloque multidisciplinaire de rentrée : sa définition en philosophie chez Platon et Aristote, ses applications en mathématiques et en astrophysique, en chimie et en biologie, ses conséquences en psychologie et en linguistique, en anthropologie, en droit et dans les arts. Ces débats ont été aussi l'occasion de se tourner vers des pensées où elle joue un rôle particulièrement important, comme le structuralisme de Claude Lévi-Strauss ou l'histoire de l'art d'André Chastel. Jean-Pierre Changeux est professeur honoraire au Collège de France, chaire de Communications cellulaires. Il a dirigé la publication de trois colloques précédents du Collège de France : La Vérité dans les sciences (2003), Gènes et culture (2003) et L'Homme artificiel(2007). Contributions de Antoine Compagnon, Claude Debru, Stanislas Dehaene, Mireille Delmas-Marty, Philippe Descola, Anne Fagot-Largeault, Marcel Hénaff, Michel Hochmann, Jean-Jacques Hublin, François-Bernard Mâche, Jean-François Mangin, Jean-Claude Pecker, Jacques Reisse, John Scheid, Jesper Svenbro.

Vie des formes et les formes de la vie (La)

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 Ricoeur, 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, Gttingen "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 laboratoriesan 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 themfrom snake venom action to myasthenia gravis, addiction, learning, and schiz- ophreniaif 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

L'homme Neuronal

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