Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?

A Neuroscientific View of the Zombie Brain

Timothy Verstynen, Bradley Voytek (Autoren)

Buch | Softcover

272 Seiten

2016
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-17315-3 (ISBN)

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Even if you've never seen a zombie movie or television show, you could identify an undead ghoul if you saw one. With their endless wandering, lumbering gait, insatiable hunger, antisocial behavior, and apparently memory-less existence, zombies are the walking nightmares of our deepest fears. What do these characteristic behaviors reveal about the inner workings of the zombie mind? Could we diagnose zombism as a neurological condition by studying their behavior? In Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?, neuroscientists and zombie enthusiasts Timothy Verstynen and Bradley Voytek apply their neuro-know-how to dissect the puzzle of what has happened to the zombie brain to make the undead act differently than their human prey. Combining tongue-in-cheek analysis with modern neuroscientific principles, Verstynen and Voytek show how zombism can be understood in terms of current knowledge regarding how the brain works. In each chapter, the authors draw on zombie popular culture and identify a characteristic zombie behavior that can be explained using neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and brain-behavior relationships.
Through this exploration they shed light on fundamental neuroscientific questions such as: How does the brain function during sleeping and waking? What neural systems control movement? What is the nature of sensory perception? Walking an ingenious line between seriousness and satire, Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep? leverages the popularity of zombie culture in order to give readers a solid foundation in neuroscience.

Timothy Verstynen is assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and at the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition at Carnegie Mellon University. Bradley Voytek is assistant professor of computational cognitive science and neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego. They are both members of the Zombie Research Society.

LIST OF FIGURES vii PRELUDE SACRIFICES NOT MADE IN VAIN ix INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1 GRAY'S (UNDEAD) ANATOMY 7 CHAPTER 2 DO ZOMBIES DREAM OF UNDEAD SHEEP? 27 CHAPTER 3 THE NEURAL CORRELATES OF LUMBERING 49 CHAPTER 4 HUNGRY, ANGRY, AND STUPID IS NO WAY TO GO THROUGH UNLIFE 66 CHAPTER 5 THERE'S NO CRYING IN THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE! 90 CHAPTER 6 TONGUE-TIED AND TWISTED 104 CHAPTER 7 DISENGAGEMENT DEFICIT OF THE DEAD 131 CHAPTER 8 WHOSE UNDEAD FACE IS THIS, ANYWAY? 149 CHAPTER 9 HOW AM I NOT MYSELF? 166 CHAPTER 10 ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE UNDEAD MIND 179 CHAPTER 11 FIGHTING THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE ... WITH SCIENCE! 202 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 231 GLOSSARY 233 INDEX 251

Erscheinungsdatum	23.09.2016
Zusatzinfo	16 line illus.
Verlagsort	New Jersey
Sprache	englisch
Maße	140 x 216 mm
Gewicht	340 g
Themenwelt	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik
	Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Humanbiologie
	Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Zoologie
ISBN-10	0-691-17315-X / 069117315X
ISBN-13	978-0-691-17315-3 / 9780691173153
Zustand	Neuware