neuroscience and neurobiology books

	Catatonia in Autism Spectrum Disorders, Volume 72 (International Review of Neurobiology)
	By: Dirk Marcel Dhossche ISBN: 0123668735 Publisher: Academic Press Release Date: 07 March, 2006 Bioscience book rank: 914276
	Learning to Smell: Olfactory Perception from Neurobiology to Behavior
	By: Donald A. Wilson, Richard J. Stevenson ISBN: 0801883687 Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press Release Date: 11 May, 2006 Bioscience book rank: 900828	LEARNING TO SMELL: OLFACTORY PERCEPTION FROM NEUROBIOLOGY TO BEHAVIOR is written by a neurobiologist and psychologist and provides a new theory of olfactory perception, making it a recommended pick for any college-level health library holding. The major research in the area lies in determining how the brain identifies and separates smells: chapters reviews research approaches and propose that experience and cortical plasticity combine to play a defining role in odor perception. A review of the physiology of olfactory systems and mechanics of detection enhances this excellent discourse. <br /> <br />Diane C. Donovan <br />California Bookwatch The biggest felonies in sensory science have to do with equating (1) the physical stimulus, or (2) early neural signals, with psychological perception. For instance, as long as a vision scientist confuses wavelength with color, he will have no tenable scientific understanding of color, and he will at best publish confusing research. Alternatively, if he thinks that he can understand color based on the simple outputs of three cone photoreceptors, he will remain in the dark, so to speak. <br /> <br />Perhaps it is not fair to accuse most olfactory scientists of the aforementioned felony. However, most of them, apparently, have focused on the front end of system, attempting to understand how chemicals are transduced into neural signals and represented in the olfactory system. If their explanation of odor detection and discrimination ends there, they've blown it. <br /> <br />The authors suggest that, historically, researchers have mostly attempted to determine how a chemical stimulus is represented in the olfactory system, without considering context and learning. <br /> <br />However, the authors note that this perspective is at odds with considerable neurobiological and psychological data, which demonstrate the importance of perceptual learing (i.e., synthetic processing and experiential factors) as opposed to the structural features of the stimulus as critical for odor discrimination. In reviewing the evidence, the authors conclude that the initial odorant features are not consciously accessible, and that this extraction is at best a first necessary stage for subsequent cortical synthetic processing. "Cortical synthetic coding reflects an experience-dependent process that allows synthesis of novel co-occurring features, similar to processes used for visual object coding. Thus, we propose that experience and cortical plasticity are not only important for traditional associative olfactory memory (e.g. fear conditioning, maze learning, and delayed-match-to-sample paradigms), but also play a critical, defining role in odor discrimination." <br /> <br />So, this book is on target because it frees itself from the shackles of simple models of chemical pattern recognition. <br /> <br />I'm not an expert on olfaction. My appreciation of this book was greatly enhanced by reading a very good introductory chapter on olfaction. This chapter appeared in Wolfe et al (Sensation & Perception, 2005), and was authored primarily (I believe) by Rachel Herz. This chapter included many informative illustrations, and the textbook website at Sinauer included an excellent section on sensory memory cues based on Herz' research. (I wish this book had colorful illustrations). <br /> <br />The authors do a superb job of comparing olfaction and olfaction research to research on the other senses, in particular the visual sense. They note the many similarities among sensory systems, and use these similarities to inform their analyses and their research. Moreover, they integrate their understanding of learning, memory and pattern recognition into the theoretical approach. <br /> <br />The integrative nature of this book was definitely a plus. If you are a psychophysicist or cognitive scientist, then it is hard to disagree with the authors on the key points of their theory.
	Les neurosciences et la philosophie de l'action (Problemes et controverses)
	By: UNKNOWN ISBN: 2711613372 Publisher: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin Release Date: 1997 Bioscience book rank: 936104
	The Design of Experiments in Neuroscience
	By: Mary Harrington ISBN: 0534624154 Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing Release Date: 27 May, 2005 Bioscience book rank: 889639
	Humanizing Madness: Psychiatry and the Cognitive Neurosciences
	By: Niall McLaren M.D. ISBN: 1932690395 Publisher: Future Psychiatry Press Release Date: 06 September, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 1068168	After recently completing quite a few psychology classes, only one thing remains a common thread across each: it seems no psychologist agrees with another. There are so many schools of thought and barely any common themes. <br />Dr. McLaren outlines in this 30-year-research-result the flaws in some of the most popular and well accepted schools of thought and practice. <br />Even though I do not sport an M.D. after my name, I understood and thoroughly enjoyed this frank and prod at what many professionals blindly accept as fact. Using the scientific model to grind down the frivolities of many schools of psychology, Dr. McLaren gets to the "nitty gritty" of modern psychology. The scientific model helps us understand some of the most common mental disabilities today without writing them off to Freudian fantasies. Dualism is an enlightening concept and to me, strikes as the most practical and rational approach one can have to a situation. Mind over matter sounds so cliché, but the relationship between mind and matter is a road to explore for most mental handicaps, not just an adage. <br /> This is an academic book about psychiatric methods. As a psychology graduate as well as a user of the various services, I find this a fascinating subject. It's not for a beginner, but for someone who has some experience of the mental health services, it's interesting and thought-provoking. I love the idea of Future Psychiatry anyway, we need to get over the stigma attached to mental health and see it on the same level as physical health issues. It's not a new theory, but more of an overview of what has gone before and where the future direction of psychiatry should lead. In this book Niall McLaren sets out to explain what a scientific theory of psychiatry should look like. As a young student of psychiatry he began to wonder why there we so many different theories but no definite truths. He decided to start searching for the truth and after nearly thirty years of effort the first outline of that search is presented in this groundbreaking book. <br /> <br />Niall McLaren will talk about each current theory in psychiatry and show the they are all no good. These include the psychodynamic (using psychoanalysis as the model), the cognitive, behaviorism, biological psychiatry, dualism and the eclectic approach. He will show that they are all flawed beyond repair. <br /> <br />After showing that all current theories have serious problems, McLaren presents a completely new theory for psychiatry and shows how it can be applied to understanding human mental disorder. <br /> <br />Niall McLaren writes in clear and understandable way about the various theories. You don't need to be an expert in this field to understand and appreciate this book. Reading the book has been an eye opening experience for me. I had to keep reading until I reached the end to see what the new theory was all about. I cannot recommend this book enough. <br />
	Imaging in Neuroscience and Development: A Laboratory Manual
	By: Rafael Yuste ISBN: 0879696923 Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Release Date: 15 November, 2004 Bioscience book rank: 514837
	Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology
	By: Constance Hammond ISBN: 0123116244 Publisher: Academic Press Release Date: 15 March, 2001 Bioscience book rank: 916745	I'm currently writing this review as a means of procrastination for an upcoming final in a course that holds this text as assigned reading. The only reason I'm online at all is I was searching everywhere for a hint of what exists in the supposed appendix 11.1, mentioned on pg.341 of this edition, but nowhere to be found apparently (not on the academic press website, and definitely not in the book itself!) The appendix is referenced with those inquisitive readers (as I see mentioned in another review on this page) in mind... the readers who want research to support ridiculous hypotheses so that they too can form their own conclusions. This is only one example of missing items referred to in the text. Overall, it is very poorly written (great if you consider the fact that a foreigner wrote it, but terrible for native english speakers). At one point, the english word chosen was so far removed from that intended that I had to consult French speakers to confirm my suspicion of the simple translational mistake. The figures are probably the worst feature of this text (in comparison to how applauded they are in every review i come across). They are filled with mistakes, often lacking vital conceptual info, and sometimes simply idiotic. Any highly descriptive textbook (especially newly released ones of course) would put the student light-years ahead of their classmates who made the poor decision of buying this terrible book. I never write reviews, and I am very good at biology, so take my advice. I write this in pure disgust that the author was permitted to publish this text, much less teach in the field. In contrast to other textbooks, the book of Hammond is based on the assumption that the most appropriate way to teach is to follow the path that enabled to develop a concept and prove it. The book thus includes over 400 figures of now classical experiments with a concise explanation of the hypothesis, the experimental design used to test the hypothesis and the conclusions derived. The student gets rapidly familiar with channels, basic networks and functions thanks to brief addenda in which complicated experiments with patch clamp techniques become quite straightforward. The molecular and cellular elements required to understand how ionic channels operate during maturation and in relation to sensory perception or learning are presented in an excellent English and includes several chapters by leading experts in their respective fields. The quality of the figures facilitates direct use for teaching neurobiology. This book is very different from the myriads of verbose biology textbooks out there. The language is very concise, and so this relatively thin textbook may cover as much material as one that's twice as thick. However, the English is often hard to understand, perhaps because it's orginally written in French and then translated into English.
	Art Therapy and Clinical Neuroscience
	By: Noah Hass-cohen, Richard Carr ISBN: 1843108682 Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers Release Date: 15 February, 2008 Bioscience book rank: 1067980
	Fundamentals of Functional Brain Imaging: A Guide to the Methods and their Applications to Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience (Studies on Neuropsychology, Development, and Cognition, 1)
	By: Papanicolaou ISBN: 9026515286 Publisher: Psychology Press Release Date: 01 January, 1998 Bioscience book rank: 996783
	Neuroscience: PreTest Self-Assessment & Review (Pre-Test Basic Science Series)
	By: Allan Siegel ISBN: 0071436510 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Medical Release Date: 04 August, 2004 Bioscience book rank: 530438	The only down side here is that many of the anatomical terms are only given in one style, when there may be several different appropriate terms for the same structure....so, read it with a copy of Stedmans handy.