It is increasingly being recognized that the experimental and theoretical study of the complex system brain requires the cooperation of many disciplines, in cluding biology, medicine, physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, linguistics, and others. In this way brain research has become a truly interdis ciplinary endeavor. Indeed, the most important progress is quite often made when different disciplines cooperate. Thus it becomes necessary for scientists to look across the fence surrounding their disciplines. The present book is written precisely in this spirit. It addresses graduate students, professors and scientists in a variety of fields, such as biology, medicine and physics. Be yond its mathematical representation the book gives ample space to verbal and pictorial descriptions of the main and, as I believe, fundamental new insights, so that it will be of interest to a general readership, too. I use this opportunity to thank my former students, some of whom are my present co-workers, for their cooperation over many years. Among them I wish to mention in particular M. Bestehorn, L. Borland, H. Bunz, A. Daf fertshofer, T. Ditzinger, E. Fischer, A. Fuchs, R. Haas, R. Honlinger, V. Jirsa, M. Neufeld, M. Ossig, D. Reimann, M. Schanz, G. Schoner, P. Tass, C. Uhl. My particular thanks go to R. Friedrich and A. Wunderlin for their constant help in many respects. Stimulating discussions with a number of colleagues from a variety of fields are also highly appreciated.

Prologue

I Foundations
1. Introduction
2. Exploring the Brain
3. Modeling the Brain. A First Attempt: The Brain as a Dynamical System
4. Basic Concepts of Synergetics I: Order Parameters and the Slaving Principle
5. Dynamics of Order Parameters
II Behavior
6. Movement Coordination - Movement Patterns
7. More on Finger Movements
8. Learning
9. Animal Gaits and Their Transitions
10. Basic Concepts of Synergetics II: Formation of Spatio-temporal Patterns
11. Analysis of Spatio-temporal Patterns *
12. Movements on a Pedalo
III EEG and MEG
13. Chaos, Chaos, Chaos
14. Analysis of Electroencephalograms
15. Analysis of MEG Patterns
IV Cognition
16. Visual Perception
17. Decision Making as Pattern Recognition
18. The Brain as a Computer or Can Computers Think?
19. Networks of Brains
20. Synergetics of the Brain: Where Do We Stand? Where Do We Go from Here?
Appendices
A. Analysis of Time Series
A.1 Time Series Analysis
A.2 Definition of Dimensions
A.3 Dimension of Attractors
A.4 Some Conclusions
B. Determination of Adjoint Vectors
C. The Potentials Occurring in Sect. 16.5
References and Further Reading
About the Author.