Biophysics of Computation

I just finished “fast reading” Christof Koch’s book “Biophysics of Computation”, i.e. reading it but not stopping to understand concepts I didn’t get on the first pass, making sure to understand equations, etc.  The book gives a great description of how various aspects of the brain can be modeled mathematically, and how the brain might carry out various “computations” in doing its job.

I’m personally interested in building mathematical models of the brain, and due to the vast complexity of the brain we are forced to make major simplifications in our models of it.  This book gives great information on potentially relevant aspect of neural functioning, which helps a modeler make informed decisions about which simplifications can / should be made.

In addition to a mathematical / computational perspective, the book also more generally gives a great description of what we know about how the brain works at a low level.