A panoramic view of the evolution of life on our planet, from its origins to humanity's future. In A History of Bodies, Brains, and Minds , Francisco Aboitiz provides a brief history of life, the brain, and cognition, from the earliest living beings to our own species. The author proceeds from the basic premise that, since evolution by natural selection is the process underlying the origin of life and its evolution on earth, the brain—and thus our minds—must also be the result of biological evolution. The aim of this book is to narrate how animal bodies came to be built with their nervous systems and how our species evolved with culture, technology, language, and consciousness. The book is organized in four parts, each delving into a different aspect of evolutionary development: • Definitions lays the groundwork by discussing the principles of biological evolution and explores the definition and mechanisms of life itself. • Beginnings describes the origins of life, starting from the emergence of the first cells to the development of neurons as the building blocks for brain networks. • The Rise of Bodies and Brains examines the evolution of animals with bilateral symmetry, the emergence of chordates and vertebrates, and the expansion and diversification of the vertebrate brain. • A Singular Ape explores Homo sapiens and our species' unique traits, such as bipedality, tool use, culture, language, communication, and consciousness. Comprehensive and deeply insightful, this book helps us understand our place in the natural world and the cosmos—as well as what the future might hold for life on earth.

An in-depth investigation of the structure, neuronal mechanisms, and computations of the frontal lobe that enable higher-level thought. Experts from neurobiology, neuroanatomy, evolutionary biology, cognitive neuroscience, computational neuroscience, and clinical science examine how the neuronal structure of the frontal lobes enables unique aspects of higher-level thought. Implications for understanding disrupted function in neurological and psychiatric disorders, as well as societal issues, such as volitional control of behavior and educational practice, are also considered.

How withdrawal distress and cravings can haunt current and former addicts, and what they can teach us about addiction and its treatments. “The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house,” Jean Cocteau once wrote. In The Ghost in the Addict , Shepard Siegel offers a Pavlovian analysis of drug use. Chronic drug use, he explains, conditions users to have an anticipatory homeostatic correction, which protects the addict from overdose. This drug-preparatory response, elicited by drug-paired cues, is often mislabeled a “withdrawal response.” The withdrawal response, however, is not due to the baneful effects of previous drug administrations; rather, it is due to the body's preparation for the next drug administration—a preparatory response that can haunt addicts like a ghost long after they have conquered their usage. Examining the failure of legislation, the circumstances of overdose, and the cues that promote drug use, Siegel seeks to counter the widespread belief that addiction is evidence of a pathology. Instead, he proposes that the addict has an adaptive, learned response to the physiological changes wrought by drug use. It is only through understanding so-called withdrawal symptoms as a Pavlovian response, he explains, that we can begin to understand why addicts experience cravings long after their last drug use.

An exciting, new framework for interpreting the philosophical significance of neuroscience. All science needs to simplify, but when the object of research is something as complicated as the brain, this challenge can stretch the limits of scientific possibility. In fact, in The Brain Abstracted , an avowedly “opinionated” history of neuroscience, M. Chirimuuta argues that, due to the brain's complexity, neuroscientific theories have only captured partial truths—and “neurophilosophy” is unlikely to be achieved. Looking at the theory and practice of neuroscience, both past and present, Chirimuuta shows how the science has been shaped by the problem of brain complexity and the need, in science, to make things as simple as possible. From this history, Chirimuuta draws lessons for debates in philosophy of science over the limits and definition of science and in philosophy of mind over explanations of consciousness and the mind-body problem. The Brain Abstracted is the product of a historical rupture that has become visible in the twenty-first century, between the “classical” scientific approach, which seeks simple, intelligible principles underlying the manifest complexity of nature, and a data-driven engineering approach, which dispenses with the search for elegant, explanatory laws and models. In the space created by this rupture, Chirimuuta finds grounds for theoretical and practical humility. Her aim in The Brain Abstracted is not to reform neuroscience, or offer advice to neuroscientists, but rather to interpret their work—and to suggest a new framework for interpreting the philosophical significance of neuroscience.

An overview of the mechanisms and evolution of spatial cognition, integrating evidence from psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and computational geometry. Understanding how we deal with space requires input from many fields, including ethology, neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, geography, and spatial information theory. In From Geometry to Behavior , cognitive neuroscientist Hanspeter A. Mallot provides an overview of the basic mechanisms of spatial behavior in animals and humans, showing how they combine to support higher-level performance. Mallot explores the biological mechanisms of dealing with space, from the perception of visual space to the constructions of large space representations: that is, the cognitive map. The volume is also relevant to the epistemology of spatial knowledge in the philosophy of mind. Mallot aims to establish spatial cognition as a scientific field in its own right. His general approach is psychophysical, in that it focuses on quantitative descriptions of behavioral performance and their real-world determinants, thus connecting to the work of theorists in computational neuroscience, robotics, and computational geometry. After an overview of scientific thinking about space, Mallot covers spatial behavior and its underlying mechanisms in the order of increasing memory involvement. He describes the cognitive processes that underlie advanced spatial behaviors such as directed search, wayfinding, spatial planning, spatial reasoning, object building and manipulation, and communication about space. These mechanisms are part of the larger cognitive apparatus that also serves visual and object cognition; understanding events, actions, and causality; and social cognition, which includes language. Of all of these cognitive domains, spatial cognition most likely occurred first in the course of evolution and is the most widespread throughout the animal kingdom.

The memoirs of renowned Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard and his extraordinary journey toward inner freedom and compassion in action. Matthieu Ricard began his spiritual transformation at the age of twenty-one, in Darjeeling, India, when he met Tibetan teacher Kangyur Rinpoche, who deeply impressed the young man with his extraordinary quality of being. In Notebooks of a Wandering Monk , Ricard tells the simple yet extraordinary story of his journey and the remarkable men and women who inspired him along the way, including Kangyur Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and the fourteenth Dalai Lama, as well as great luminaries such as Desmond Tutu, Jane Goodall, and a number of leading scientists. Growing up, Ricard, the son of philosopher Jean-François Revel and artist Yahne Le Toumelin, regularly found himself in the company of intellectuals and artists such as Luis Buñuel, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Igor Stravinsky. Young Ricard loved nature, classical music, and science and dreamed of unlocking the mysteries of molecular biology. But, six years after meeting Kangyur Rinpoche, Ricard gave up a promising career in genetics to pursue a meditative life in the remote Himalayas. While spending half a century in India, Bhutan, and Nepal, he visited Tibet more than twenty times and spent years publishing rare Tibetan texts and photographing his spiritual teachers and the world in which they lived. Elegantly translated by Jesse Browner and accompanied by more than fifty full-color photographs, many of which are Ricard's own, Notebooks of a Wandering Monk charts Ricard's lifelong path to wisdom and compassion. This candid and reflective memoir will inspire all readers, wherever they may be on their own journey to a meaningful and well-lived life.

The fascinating story of glutamate, the neurotransmitter that controls the structure and function of the brain in health and neurological disorders. Sculptor and Destroyer tells the story of a simple, little-known molecule that became a master architect and commander of the human brain: glutamate. Upward of 90 percent of the neurons in the human brain deploy glutamate as their neurotransmitter. Other neurotransmitters can only exert their effects on brain function by subtly modifying the ongoing activity of glutamatergic neurons, but during brain development glutamate controls the growth of dendrites and the formation of synapses. In this eye-opening book, Mark Mattson explains how the neurotransmitter glutamate controls the structure and function of neuronal networks in the brain, thereby mediating the brain's capabilities, including learning and memory, creativity, and imagination. Mattson also delves deeply into the dark side of glutamate, which he calls the “destroyer” side. He shows how relatively subtle aberrancies in the activity of neurons that deploy glutamate may result in behavioral disorders ranging from autism and schizophrenia to chronic anxiety and depression. More dramatically, he describes how glutamate can excite neurons to death, a process that occurs in epilepsy and stroke and, perhaps even more insidiously, in Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, ALS, and Huntington's disease. Sculptor and Destroyer concludes with a perspective on how knowledge of glutamate's roles in neuroplasticity might be applied to the optimization of brain health throughout our lives. Written in engaging, approachable prose , Sculptor and Destroyer will be of interest to anyone in the fields of neuroscience, neurology, psychiatry, and psychology, as well as to anyone with a curiosity about the human brain.

The “new science of morality” that will change how we see each other, how we build our communities, and how we live our lives. In Changing How We Choose , David Redish makes a bold claim: Science has “cracked” the problem of morality. Redish argues that moral questions have a scientific basis and that morality is best viewed as a technology—a set of social and institutional forces that create communities and drive cooperation. This means that some moral structures really are better than others and that the moral technologies we use have real consequences on whether we make our societies better or worse places for the people living within them. Drawing on this new scientific definition of morality and real-world applications, Changing How We Choose is an engaging read with major implications for how we see each other, how we build our communities, and how we live our lives. Many people think of human interactions in terms of conflicts between individual freedom and group cooperation, where it is better for the group if everyone cooperates but better for the individual to cheat. Redish shows that moral codes are technologies that change the game so that cooperating is good for the community and for the individual. Redish, an authority on neuroeconomics and decision-making, points out that the key to moral codes is how they interact with the human decision-making process. Drawing on new insights from behavioral economics, sociology, and neuroscience, he shows that there really is a “new science of morality” and that this new science has implications—not only for how we understand ourselves but also for how we should construct those new moral technologies.

Discover the hidden electrical world inside your nervous system using DIY, hands-on experiments, for all ages. No MD or PhD required! The workings of the brain are mysterious: What are neural signals? What do they mean? How do our senses really sense? How does our brain control our movements? What happens when we meditate? Techniques to record signals from living brains were once thought to be the realm of advanced university labs... but not anymore! This book allows anyone to participate in the discovery of neuroscience through hands-on experiments that record the hidden electrical world beneath our skin and skulls. In How Your Brain Works , neuroscientists Greg Gage and Tim Marzullo offer a practical guide—accessible and useful to readers from middle schoolers to college undergraduates to curious adults—for learning about the brain through hands-on experiments. Armed with some DIY electrodes, readers will get to see what brain activity really looks like through simple neuroscience experiments. Written by two neuroscience researchers who invented open-source techniques to record signals from neurons, muscles, hearts, eyes, and brains, How Your Brain Works includes more than forty-five experiments to gain a deeper understanding of your brain. Using a homemade scientific instrument called a SpikerBox, readers can see how fast neural signals travel by recording electrical signals from an earthworm. Or, turning themselves into subjects, readers can strap on some electrode stickers to detect the nervous system in their own bodies. Each chapter begins by describing some phenomenology of a particular area of neuroscience, then guides readers step-by-step through an experiment, and concludes with a series of open-ended questions to inspire further investigation. Some experiments use invertebrates (such as insects), and the book provides a thoughtful framework for the ethical use of these animals in education. How Your Brain Works offers fascinating reading for students at any level, curious readers, and scientists interested in using electrophysiology in their research or teaching. Example Experiments How fast do signals travel down a neuron? The brain uses electricity. . . but do neurons communicate as fast as lightning inside our bodies? In this experiment you will make a speed trap for spikes! Can we really enhance our memories during sleep? Strap on a brainwave-reading sweatband and test the power of cueing up and strengthening memories while you dream away! Wait, that's my number! Ever feel that moment of excitement when you see your number displayed while waiting for an opening at the counter? In this experiment, you will peer into your brainwaves to see what happens when the unexpected occurs and how the brain gets your attention. Using hip hop to talk to the brain. Tired of simply “reading” the electricity from the brain? Would you like to “write” to the nervous system as well? In this experiment you will use a smartphone and hack a headphone cable to see how brain stimulators (used in treating Parkinson's disease) really work. How long does it take the brain to decide? Using simple classroom rulers and a clever technique, readers can determine how long it takes the brain to make decisions.

How the way we perceive our bodies plays a critical role in the way we perceive ourselves: stories of phantom limbs, rubber hands, anorexia, and other phenomena. The body is central to our sense of identity. It can be a canvas for self-expression, decorated with clothing, jewelry, cosmetics, tattoos, and piercings. But the body is more than that. Bodily awareness, says scientist-writer Moheb Costandi, is key to self-consciousness. In Body Am I , Costandi examines how the brain perceives the body, how that perception translates into our conscious experience of the body, and how that experience contributes to our sense of self. Along the way, he explores what can happen when the mechanisms of bodily awareness are disturbed, leading to such phenomena as phantom limbs, alien hands, and amputee fetishes. Costandi explains that the brain generates maps and models of the body that guide how we perceive and use it, and that these maps and models are repeatedly modified and reconstructed. Drawing on recent bodily awareness research, the new science of self-consciousness, and historical milestones in neurology, he describes a range of psychiatric and neurological disorders that result when body and brain are out of sync, including not only the well-known phantom limb syndrome but also phantom breast and phantom penis syndromes; body integrity identity disorder, which compels a person to disown and then amputate a healthy arm or leg; and such eating disorders as anorexia. Wide-ranging and meticulously researched, Body Am I (the title comes from Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra ) offers new insight into self-consciousness by describing it in terms of bodily awareness.

An exhilarating, genre-bending exploration of curiosity's powerful capacity to connect ideas and people. Curious about something? Google it. Look at it. Ask a question. But is curiosity simply information seeking? According to this exhilarating, genre-bending book, what's left out of the conventional understanding of curiosity are the wandering tracks, the weaving concepts, the knitting of ideas, and the thatching of knowledge systems—the networks, the relations between ideas and between people. Curiosity, say Perry Zurn and Dani Bassett, is a practice of connection: it connects ideas into networks of knowledge, and it connects knowers themselves, both to the knowledge they seek and to each other. Zurn and Bassett—identical twins who write that their book “represents the thought of one mind and two bodies”—harness their respective expertise in the humanities and the sciences to get irrepressibly curious about curiosity. Traipsing across literatures of antiquity and medieval science, Victorian poetry and nature essays, as well as work by writers from a variety of marginalized communities, they trace a multitudinous curiosity. They identify three styles of curiosity—the busybody, who collects stories, creating loose knowledge networks; the hunter, who hunts down secrets or discoveries, creating tight networks; and the dancer, who takes leaps of creative imagination, creating loopy ones. Investigating what happens in a curious brain, they offer an accessible account of the network neuroscience of curiosity. And they sketch out a new kind of curiosity-centric and inclusive education that embraces everyone's curiosity. The book performs the very curiosity that it describes, inviting readers to participate—to be curious with the book and not simply about it.

How the cerebral cortex operates near a critical phase transition point for optimum performance. Individual neurons have limited computational powers, but when they work together, it is almost like magic. Firing synchronously and then breaking off to improvise by themselves, they can be paradoxically both independent and interdependent. This happens near the critical point : when neurons are poised between a phase where activity is damped and a phase where it is amplified, where information processing is optimized, and complex emergent activity patterns arise. The claim that neurons in the cortex work best when they operate near the critical point is known as the criticality hypothesis . In this book John Beggs—one of the pioneers of this hypothesis—offers an introduction to the critical point and its relevance to the brain. Drawing on recent experimental evidence, Beggs first explains the main ideas underlying the criticality hypotheses and emergent phenomena. He then discusses the critical point and its two main consequences—first, scale-free properties that confer optimum information processing; and second, universality, or the idea that complex emergent phenomena, like that seen near the critical point, can be explained by relatively simple models that are applicable across species and scale. Finally, Beggs considers future directions for the field, including research on homeostatic regulation, quasicriticality, and the expansion of the cortex and intelligence. An appendix provides technical material; many chapters include exercises that use freely available code and data sets.

How biomedical research using various animal species and in vitro cellular systems has resulted in both major successes and translational failure. In Model Systems in Biology , comparative neurobiologist Georg Striedter examines how biomedical researchers have used animal species and in vitro cellular systems to understand and develop treatments for human diseases ranging from cancer and polio to Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. Although there have been some major successes, much of this “translational” research on model systems has failed to generalize to humans. Striedter explores the history of such research, focusing on the models used and considering the question of model selection from a variety of perspectives—the philosophical, the historical, and that of practicing biologists. Striedter reviews some philosophical concepts and ethical issues, including concerns over animal suffering and the compromises that result. He traces the history of the most widely used animal and in vitro models, describing how they compete with one another in a changing ecosystem of models. He examines how therapies for bacterial and viral infections, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and neurological disorders have been developed using animal and cell culture models—and how research into these diseases has both taken advantage of and been hindered by model system differences. Finally, Striedter argues for a “big tent” biology, in which a diverse set of models and research strategies can coexist productively.

The first comprehensive treatment of active inference, an integrative perspective on brain, cognition, and behavior used across multiple disciplines. Active inference is a way of understanding sentient behavior—a theory that characterizes perception, planning, and action in terms of probabilistic inference. Developed by theoretical neuroscientist Karl Friston over years of groundbreaking research, active inference provides an integrated perspective on brain, cognition, and behavior that is increasingly used across multiple disciplines including neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. Active inference puts the action into perception. This book offers the first comprehensive treatment of active inference, covering theory, applications, and cognitive domains. Active inference is a “first principles” approach to understanding behavior and the brain, framed in terms of a single imperative to minimize free energy. The book emphasizes the implications of the free energy principle for understanding how the brain works. It first introduces active inference both conceptually and formally, contextualizing it within current theories of cognition. It then provides specific examples of computational models that use active inference to explain such cognitive phenomena as perception, attention, memory, and planning.

How intermittent fasting can enhance resilience, improve mental and physical performance, and protect against aging and disease. Most of us eat three meals a day with a smattering of snacks because we think that's the normal, healthy way to eat. This book shows why that's not the case. The human body and brain evolved to function well in environments where food could be obtained only intermittently. When we look at the eating patterns of our distant ancestors, we can see that an intermittent fasting eating pattern is normal—and eating three meals a day is not. In The Intermittent Fasting Revolution , prominent neuroscientist Mark Mattson shows that intermittent fasting is not only normal but also good for us; it can enhance our ability to cope with stress by making cells more resilient. It also improves mental and physical performance and protects against aging and disease. Intermittent fasting is not the latest fad diet; it doesn't dictate food choice or quantity. It doesn't make money for the pharmaceutical, processed food, or health care industries. Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern that includes frequent periods of time with little or negligible amounts of food. It is often accompanied by weight loss, but, Mattson says, studies show that its remarkable beneficial effects cannot be accounted for by weight loss alone. Mattson—whose pioneering research uncovered the ways that the brain responds to fasting and exercise—explains how thriving while fasting became an evolutionary adaptation. He describes the specific ways that intermittent fasting slows aging; reduces the risk of diseases, including obesity, Alzheimer's, and diabetes; and improves both brain and body performance. He also offers practical advice on adopting an intermittent fasting eating pattern as well as information for parents and physicians.

Philosophers and neuroscientists address central issues in both fields, including morality, action, mental illness, consciousness, perception, and memory. Philosophers and neuroscientists grapple with the same profound questions involving consciousness, perception, behavior, and moral judgment, but only recently have the two disciplines begun to work together. This volume offers fourteen original chapters that address these issues, each written by a team that includes at least one philosopher and one neuroscientist, who integrate disciplinary perspectives and reflect the latest research in both fields. Topics include morality, empathy, agency, the self, mental illness, neuroprediction, optogenetics, pain, vision, consciousness, memory, concepts, mind wandering, and the neural basis of psychological categories. The chapters first address basic issues about our social and moral lives: how we decide to act and ought to act toward each other, how we understand each other's mental states and selves, and how we deal with pressing social problems regarding crime and mental or brain health. The following chapters consider basic issues about our mental lives: how we classify and recall what we experience, how we see and feel objects in the world, how we ponder plans and alternatives, and how our brains make us conscious and create specific mental states. Contributors Sara Abdulla, Eyal Aharoni, Corey H. Allen, Sara Aronowitz, Jenny Blumenthal-Barby, Ned Block, Allison J. Brager, Antonio Cataldo, Tony Cheng, Felipe De Brigard, Rachel N. Denison, Jim A. C. Everett, Gidon Felsen, Julia Haas, Hyemin Han, Zac Irving, Kristina Krasich, Enoch Lambert, Cristina Leon, Anna Leshinskaya, Jordan L. Livingston, Brian Maniscalco, Joshua May, Joseph McCaffrey, Jorge Morales, Samuel Murray, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Laura Niemi, Brian Odegaard, Hannah Read, Robyn Repko Waller, Sarah Robins, Jason Samaha, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Joshua August Skorburg, Shannon Spaulding, Arjen Stolk, Rita Svetlova, Natalia Washington, Clifford Workman, Jessey Wright

An authority on Alzheimer's disease offers a history of past failures and a roadmap that points us in a new direction in our journey to a cure. For decades, some of our best and brightest medical scientists have dedicated themselves to finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease. What happened? Where is the cure? The biggest breakthroughs occurred twenty-five years ago, with little progress since. In How Not to Study a Disease , neurobiologist Karl Herrup explains why the Alzheimer's discoveries of the 1990s didn't bear fruit and maps a direction for future research. Herrup describes the research, explains what's taking so long, and offers an approach for resetting future research. Herrup offers a unique insider's perspective, describing the red flags that science ignored in the rush to find a cure. He is unsparing in calling out the stubbornness, greed, and bad advice that has hamstrung the field, but his final message is a largely optimistic one. Herrup presents a new and sweeping vision of the field that includes a redefinition of the disease and a fresh conceptualization of aging and dementia that asks us to imagine the brain as a series of interconnected “neighborhoods.” He calls for changes in virtually every aspect of the Alzheimer's disease research effort, from the drug development process, to the mechanisms of support for basic research, to the often-overlooked role of the scientific media, and more. With H ow Not to Study a Disease , Herrup provides a roadmap that points us in a new direction in our journey to a cure for Alzheimer's.

How sound leaves a fundamental imprint on who we are. Making sense of sound is one of the hardest jobs we ask our brains to do. In Of Sound Mind , Nina Kraus examines the partnership of sound and brain, showing for the first time that the processing of sound drives many of the brain's core functions. Our hearing is always on—we can't close our ears the way we close our eyes—and yet we can ignore sounds that are unimportant. We don't just hear; we engage with sounds. Kraus explores what goes on in our brains when we hear a word—or a chord, or a meow, or a screech. Our hearing brain, Kraus tells us, is vast. It interacts with what we know, with our emotions, with how we think, with our movements, and with our other senses. Auditory neurons make calculations at one-thousandth of a second; hearing is the speediest of our senses. Sound plays an unrecognized role in both healthy and hurting brains. Kraus explores the power of music for healing as well as the destructive power of noise on the nervous system. She traces what happens in the brain when we speak another language, have a language disorder, experience rhythm, listen to birdsong, or suffer a concussion. Kraus shows how our engagement with sound leaves a fundamental imprint on who we are. The sounds of our lives shape our brains, for better and for worse, and help us build the sonic world we live in.

An expert on the brain argues that the mind is not a blank slate and that much early behavior is biologically predisposed rather than learned. Why do newborns show a preference for a face (or something that resembles a face) over a nonface-like object? Why do baby chicks prefer a moving object to an inanimate one? Neither baby human nor baby chick has had time to learn to like faces or movement. In Born Knowing , neuroscientist Giorgio Vallortigara argues that the mind is not a blank slate. Early behavior is biologically predisposed rather than learned, and this instinctive or innate behavior, Vallortigara says, is key to understanding the origins of knowledge. Drawing on research carried out in his own laboratory over several decades, Vallortigara explores what the imprinting process in young chicks, paralleled by the cognitive feats of human newborns, reveals about minds at the onset of life. He explains that a preference for faces or representations of something face-like and animate objects—predispositions he calls “life detectors”—streamlines learning, allowing minds to avoid a confusing multiplicity of objects in the environment, and he considers the possibility that autism spectrum disorders might be linked to a deficit in the preference for the animate. He also demonstrates that animals do not need language to think, and that addition and subtraction can be performed without numbers. The origin of knowledge, Vallortigara argues, is the wisdom that humans and animals possess as basic brain equipment, the product of natural history rather than individual development.

An examination of the sources Helmholtz drew upon for his formulation of the conservation of energy and the impact of his work on nineteenth-century physics. In 1847, Herman Helmholtz, arguably the most important German physicist of the nineteenth century, published his formulation of what became known as the conservation of energy—unarguably the most important single development in physics of that century, transforming what had been a conglomeration of separate topics into a coherent field unified by the concept of energy. In Helmholtz and the Conservation of Energy , Kenneth Caneva offers a detailed account of Helmholtz's work on the subject, the sources that he drew upon, the varying responses to his work from scientists of the era, and the impact on physics as a discipline. Caneva describes the set of abiding concerns that prompted Helmholtz's work, including his rejection of the idea of a work-performing vital force, and investigates Helmholtz's relationship to both an older generation of physicists and an emerging community of reformist physiologists. He analyzes Helmholtz's indebtedness to Johannes Müller and Justus Liebig and discusses Helmholtz's tense and ambivalent relationship to the work of Robert Mayer, who had earlier proposed the uncreatability, indestructibility, and transformability of “force.” Caneva examines Helmholtz's continued engagement with the subject, his role in the acceptance of the conservation of energy as the central principle of physics, and the eventual incorporation of the principle in textbooks as established science.