Donald Pfaff: 7 books

Throughout his career, Donald Pfaff has demonstrated that by choosing problems and methods with care, biologists can study the molecular mechanisms of brains more complex than those of fruit flies, snails, and roundworms. He offers a close-up, conversational perspective on a 50-year quest to understand how behavior is regulated in vertebrates.

The book, written for a general educated public, compares the most important elements of the human nervous system to the corresponding capacities of robots. Crucial are the areas of activities for which the constraints limiting human and robot performances are much different. Those areas offer opportunities...

We remember the admonition of our mothers: “Treat others as you want them to treat you.” But what if being nice was something we were inclined by nature to do anyway?  Renowned neuroscientist Donald Pfaff upends our entire understanding of ethics and social contracts with an intriguing proposition:...

Since the beginning of recorded history, law and religion have provided "rules" that define good behavior. When we obey such rules, we assign to some external authority the capacity to determine how we should act. Even anarchists recognize the existence of a choice as to whether or not to obey, since...

Hormones, Brain, and Behavior Second Edition is a comprehensive work discussing the effect of hormones on the brain and, subsequently, behavior. This major reference work has 109 chapters covering a broad range of topics with an extensive discussion of the effects of hormones on insects, fish, amphibians,...

The saga of sex differences in brain and behavior begins with a tiny sperm swimming toward a huge egg, to contribute its tiny Y chromosome plus its copies of the other chromosomes. Genetic, anatomic and physiologic alterations in the male ensue, making his brain and behavior different in specific...

Neuroendocrinology is a discipline which originated about 50 years ago as a branch of Endocrinology and that is now strictly linked to neuroscience. Volumes 181 and 182 of Progress in Brain Research provide a rapid view of the major points presently discussed at biological and clinical levels. The...