by W. J. Freeman These two volumes on "Brain Oscillations" appear at a most opportune time. As the "Decade of the Brain" draws to its close, brain science is coming to terms with its ultimate problem: understanding the mechanisms by which the immense number of neurons in the human brain interact to produce the higher cognitive functions. The ideas, concepts, methods, interpretations and examples, which are presented here in voluminous detail by a world-class authority in electrophysiology, summarize the intellectual equipment that will be required to construct satisfactory solutions to the problem. Neuroscience is ripe for change. The last revolution of ideas took place in the middle of the century now ending, when the field took a sharp turn into a novel direction. During the preceding five decades the prevailing view, carried forward from the 19th century, was that neurons are the carriers of nerve energy, either in chemical or electrical forms (Freeman, 1995). That point of view was enormously productive in terms of coming to understand the chemical basis for synaptic transmission, the electrochemistry of the ac tion potential, the ionic mechanisms of membrane currents and gates, the functional neuroanatomy that underlies the hierarchy of reflexes, and the neural fields and'their resonances that support Gestalt phenomena. No bet ter testimony can be given of the power of the applications of this approach than to point out that it provides the scientific basis for contemporary neu rology, neuropsychiatry, and brain imaging.

0. Prologue

I. Foundations
1. Brain Dynamics and Brain Codes
2. Electrical Signals from the Brain
3. The Brain: Sensory and Cognitive Pathways
4. Brain Dynamics Research Program
5. Wavelet Analysis of Brain Waves
6. Phase Locking of Oscillatory Responses: An Informative Approach for Studying Evoked Brain Activity
7. Resonance Phenomena in the Brain, Physical Systems, and Nature
II. Renaissance of the EEG and Oscillations
8. Event-Related Oscillations in the Brain
9. Correlation Between Unit Activity and Activity of Neural Populations
10. Chaos in Brain Function
III. Resonance as the Basic Mechanism of Oscillatory Responses
11. Brain Synergetics: Frequency Locking of EEG: Order Out of Chaos
12. Major Operating Rhythms (MOR) Control the Shape and Time Course of Evoked Potentials
13. Oscillatory Brain Responses: Changes with Development and Aging
14. Brain Response Susceptibility
15. The Evoked Potential Manifests a Superposition of Event-Related Oscillations
16. Multiple Sclerosis: Break of the Alpha Response
17. Brain Feynman Diagrams
18. Oscillatory Components of Evoked Potentials are Real Brain Responses Related to Function
19. Conclusion
References
Author-Index.