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| By: George J. Siegel, R. Wayne Albers, Scott Brady, Donald L. Price, American Society for Neurochemistry ISBN: 012088397X Publisher: Academic Press Release Date: 31 October, 2005 Bioscience book rank: 424469 | Good Transaction, Thank you. For anyone interested in neuroscience, it is a must read. Basic Neuroscience gives a snapshot of where neuroscientists are currently doing research, including the edge of what is known and not known. Much of this knowledge has only been discovered in the last few years. This book is ideal for both undergrad and grad students in the fields of neuroscience, pharmacology, and psychology. The information is arranged neatly with the authors introducing concepts at the cellular level (anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry), then moving on to intercellular signaling. From here, the neurochemical factors are introduced, outlining their functional significance at the molecular level. The last few chapters of this book expands on the role of several neurochemical interactions in the context of diseases like Alzheimer's and Creutzfeld-Jakob (Mad cow-like disorder), Huntington's (and other related basal ganglia disorders), and several Psychiatric disorders (anxiety, mood disorders, addiction, etc). The figures are excellent, and succintly explained. Several color plates are also included. Note that the book I bought has textual addenda/errata located at the back, in order to correct factual/typographical errors. Nevertheless, these corrections don't affect the whole integrity of the contents, but rather they strengthened it. <br><br>This book also includes a CD-ROM which constitutes the book's contents, and provides nice figures that you can use as a reference. Overall, I recommend this book if you think you will embark on a career in the medical sciences, or if you are an undergrad that would like to go to grad schools. | |
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| By: Jaime Monti, S. R. Pandi-Perumal, Christopher Michael Sinton ISBN: 0521864410 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Release Date: 29 February, 2008 Bioscience book rank: 294543 | ||
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| By: Armen Galoyan, Hugo Besedovsky, Abel Lajtha ISBN: 0387303588 Publisher: Springer Release Date: 14 December, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 922255 | ||
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| By: A. J. Turner, H. S. Bachelard ISBN: 0199634394 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA Release Date: 20 February, 1997 Bioscience book rank: 1713758 | ||
| By: Elaine Perry ISBN: 1588111245 Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company Release Date: 2002 Bioscience book rank: 190081 | This book is a must read for anyone interested in the scientific study of consciousness. Neurochemicals, as well as emotion, are the two long forgotten aspects in the field that might do much to see how the puzzle could be put together. But this book has merits on content as well. It is the most comprehensive review of how brain chemistry relates to consciousness. Granted, this relation is unclear (causation, modulation, colouring, facilitation?), but what is true is that consciousness is to most the result of brain activity (and hence, neuron activity), and that neurons comunicate and are heavily modulated by a variety of chemicals.<p>The book gives a good introduction to the major systems that irrigate the cortex with neuromodulators and neurotransmitters, like noradrenalin, serotonin, dopamine, acetycholine, etc. It is telling even here that most nuclei involved are in or arround the reticular activating system (raphe, meyenert, caudate), a structure long impicated with consciousness (even if only as a necessary condition of activation). There is a chapter on what is to me the most plausible quantum model of consciousness (but I remain sceptic), by N. Woolf, and proposes that acetycholine regulates proteins that bind to microtubules making these apt for quantum coherence (if this sounds complicated, it is).<p>The first section deals witj neurochemistry of memory, attention,spleep, dreaming, etc..., issues that obviously relate to consciousness in important ways. Attention for example, is to most essential to consciousness, given that unattended stimuli seem to not become conscious, whereas attended ones invariably seem to. Sleep is obviously a good paradigm for studying consciousness, given that it is characterized by changes in the conscious state itself. If we understood everything about sleep, we would be a long way into understanding consciousness.<p>The second chapter deals with how chemicals affect consciousness. Here I beliieve, anaesthethics are of primary importance. There is a chapter on anaesthesia, on neuroleptics, on drugs and plants that have them, etc.. Anaesthethics seem to abolish consciousness, so finding out why would at the very least tell us the necessary conditions for consciousness to occur. The papers on this section illustrate the role some neurochemicals might have in the regulation of the conscious state, as well as how when malfunctioning these can have effects on the conscious state.<br>The last chapter deals with brain diseases, (altzheimers, lewey bodies, schizofrenia, mood-disorders, autism), their probably chemical substrates, and how understanding them not only could bring relief to sufferers of these disorders, but illuminate the mechanisms of consciousness.<p>All in all, this is a wonderful book, and everyone that reads it will not think of consciousness again without including brain neurochemistry into the picture. It is clear that consicousness will only be fully understood when we have its neural correlates, its neurochemical correlates, its functional correlates, and a way to translate all this into a phenomenal language. This book is then an attempt into puting together one quarter of the puzzle. (For another half of the puzzle, see NCC by T. Metzinger, The Cognitive Neuroscience of Consciousness, by S. Dehaene,In The Theather of Consciousness by Bernard Baars. Unfortunately, the last quarter of the puzzle, qualia, lacks a good representative in the literature. try Humphreys How to Solve the Mind-Body Problem, or maybe Carrunthers, Phenomenal Consciousness.) | |
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| By: Gary E. Gibson, Gerry A. Dienel, Abel Lajtha ISBN: 0387303669 Publisher: Springer Release Date: 13 March, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 2152803 | ||
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| By: Simo Oja, Arne Schousboe, Pirjo Saransaari, Abel Lajtha ISBN: 0387303421 Publisher: Springer Release Date: 13 April, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 2353364 | ||
| By: Aman U Khan ISBN: 0963410512 Publisher: A.J. Publisher Release Date: 1998 Bioscience book rank: | ||
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| By: Abel Lajtha, Moussa B.H. Youdin, Peter Riederer, Sylvia A. Mandel, Leontino Battistin ISBN: 0387303448 Publisher: Springer Release Date: 14 December, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 6390661 | ||
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| By: Herman Bachelard ISBN: 030645520X Publisher: Springer Release Date: 31 July, 1997 Bioscience book rank: 6060518 | ||
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neuroscience protocols, neurochemistry, neurophysiology electrophysiology methods, behavioral neuroscience, neuroanatomy
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