neuroscience and neurobiology books

	Essential Neuroscience
	By: Allan Siegel, Hreday N Sapru ISBN: 0781791219 Publisher: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Release Date: 01 October, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 20952
	Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions (Series in Affective Science)
	By: Jaak Panksepp ISBN: 019517805X Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA Release Date: 30 September, 2004 Bioscience book rank: 51570	i came across the author through a news article in the new york times about laughing rats. they had a link to his paper, which i found fascinating, so i ordered his book. i have no education in science, so i'm interested in the material but i haven't anything more than a high school science education from the mid-1960s, so all this molecular stuff is frightfully difficult for me to internalize. Some of this text is totally gobbledygook for me. There are so many italicized words and those bizarre brain locations i would have needed a pen and pad to actually locate the semantics of those sentences. but when i can get through all that, i find his hypothesis and evidence quite compelling. i've read le doux because he's very simple in his explanations, and in this text he is critized for his dismissal of the limbic system. this book's central thesis is that the "triune" brain represents an evolutionary progression, with primal emotions [anger, fear, "seeking"] an early aspect of nervous systems that conserves across all vertebrates. then he discusses the mroe social behaviors located within the old mammalian brain which we share with other mammals, etc. he provides a molecular description of neurochemical circuits. i am learning a lot, and there is much food for thought. i have no idea, i am not capable of judging whether or not his work and conclusions are valid. I can't tell you whether this book is good science or not. but to me this stuff is important to try to understand, and i think this book brings an important viewpoint to the table that i personally sympathize with and so i choose to accept it -- it fits my biases. i don't know what's true, but at this by reading this, at least i feel like i am beginning to understand the nature of what it really means to be human. so this book is central to my attemp to understand what it means to be alive. Panksepp's "Affective Neuroscience" represents a landmark text in this field. It is a concise and readable summary of the relevant science. Panksepp does a laudable job of collecting a wealth of research data, providing a theoretical integration for that data and presenting all of this in an accessible form. The text is aimed at seriously minded students - the level of detail would be off-putting to the casual reader who might be better off with Joseph LeDoux's "Emotional Brain" (though that book is centered mainly around the emotion of fear). <br /> <br />The book is broken up into three main sections. The first section offers a general conceptual background (including a nice review of relevant neuroanatomy, neurochemistry and neurophysiology), along with an outline of a coherent research strategy. Panksepp calls for a research program that unites behavioral, cognitive/psychological and neuroscientific approaches in the study of mind. While the subject of emotion is capable of being approached from several different levels of analysis, he holds that the brain-systems level represents a `gold standard'. Thus the majority of research presented in "Affective Neuroscience" has been gathered from animal research utilizing brain stimulation (electrical and chemical), as well as lesion studies. Relevant data from human experiments is also presented. One of the major advantages of animal experiments is that they permit for the use of invasive techniques and thus for causal links to be established as opposed to the correlational nature of human imaging studies. Also, given the largely sub-neocortical nature of emotional processes and the remarkable prevalence of evolutionary homologues in the ancient divisions of the neuro-axis (homologues in neuroanatomy as well as in neurochemistry), generalizations can often be made from other mammals to humans. <br /> <br />Panksepp takes the not-so-controversial point of view that emotional packages are evolutionarily derived operating systems with their own intrinsic forms of organization. The kinds of environmental challenges faced by our mammalian ancestors (e.g., the need to avoid threats, to seek out mates) necessitated very specific modifications of the nervous system and the `discovery' of basic `emotion organ systems' via the blind algorithmic processes of natural selection. Panksepp feels that adequate neuroanatomical, neurochemical and neurophysiological knowledge has been obtained to substantiate the delineation of several fundamental emotional operating systems (covered in the rest of the book): SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR and PANIC, along with the more pro-social circuits of LUST, CARE and PLAY. Most of these circuitries are hierarchically situated in brainstem, paleocortical and limbic areas. The identified emotional circuits have central integrating functions capable of recruiting and modulating various perceptual and cognitive resources `above' and visceral motor outputs `below'; they coordinate the full `orchestra' of emotional responses. Once activated each of these modules includes specific behavioral tendencies, modes of cognitive processing and subjective tone. The subjective tone represents a primodial form of consciousness that maps the relation between the self and the environment. <br /> <br />Panksepp insists that this ancient affective consciousness is not just a simple epiphenomenon of neural activity (i.e., not just froth) but that it has a definite functional role. He sees the importance of this affective experiential dimension as providing the organism with a kind of coding system (e.g., it codes objects/events as either biologically useful or harmful)which assists in the maintenance and calibration of long term behavioral strategies. For instance, he uses the example of how the subjective experience of the color red in primates is not just an epiphenomenon but that it actively controls behavior in so far as the color red can be used as a means of judging the ripeness of fruit. <br /> <br />In emphasizing the importance of these raw feels Panksepp takes a position that is contrary to majority opinion; many investigators view animals as automata and although they readily grant that they are fully capable of emotional expression they are more hesitant about granting them internal emotional experience. The point of contention is where to place affective experience along the vertical dimension of the neuro-axis. While some investigators (e.g., LeDoux, Damasio) essentially hold that elaboration of the phenomenological feel of emotional states does not occur below telencephalic areas, Panksepp claims that these `primary-process' raw feeling states are organized at midbrain levels. <br /> <br />While some portions of the book are highly speculative, Panksepp generally acknowledges this. The only way for a young science to progress is by being speculative and Panksepp proves himself to be an original thinker. One would think that this book provides a lot of useful information for evolutionary psychological theories . It approaches the themes explored by evolutionary psychology from a brain science perspective rather than from the cognitive/computational perspective. There are also plenty of clinical implications as Panksepp explores the way in which the major emotional circuitries can become dysregulated in psychiatric disorders. There are also interesting links with other theorists - for example, much like Damasio, Panksepp stresses the importance of the brain's body maps in the foundation of consciousness. An updated version of the text would be welcome. It often astonishes me how many of my colleagues continue to argue that emotions are no more than simple reflexes that probably do not even exist in animals. Yet anyone who spends much time with animals constantly observes sophisticated reasoning and highly developed emotions. And it is difficult to try and reduce the sometimes devastating consequences of emotional disturbances in people with mood disorders to a series of reflexes. <br /> <br />Fortunately the understanding of the neurobiology of emotion has taken enormous strides in recent years. Jaak Panksepp, long regarded as one of the leaders in the field, gives us a wonderfully readable account of some of the neurological machinery that helps organize emotion in ALL mammals. For it is becoming clear that emotion is present in every mammal so far studied: even mice show evidence of emotion. <br /> <br />Panksepp includes discussion of arousal and of sleep: this one is of particular importance in the light of the increasing body of clinical work indicating that many mood disorders are secondary to disturbances of sleep, rather than sleep disorders being a consequence of mood disorders. He goes on to discuss systems involved in pleasure and fear, the sources of some forms of anger and rage. He is very good on the neural control of sexuality in animals, as well as the subtle emotions involved maternal care, social loss, and playfulness. The importance of these neurological systems in human beings remains an open question: humans are so astonishingly complex and have so many "extra" dimensions on their behavioral actions, that it is probably unwise to try and reduce these complex behaviors to the firing of groups of neurons. <br /> <br />This focus on the neurobiology of affect is welcome, though it is valuable to remember that emotion can also be conceptualized as irreducible psychological and social functions. <br /> <br />Although this book is eight years old, it remains an excellent foundation and context in which to place more recent books and papers.
	Netter's Neuroscience Flash Cards (Netter Basic Science)
	By: David L. Felten ISBN: 1929007647 Publisher: Saunders Release Date: 01 December, 2004 Bioscience book rank: 45954	These flash cards cover ALL necessary topics! The pictures are clear and easy to understand. I am a Complimentary Practicioner and I have found these cards extremely useful. I use them a little differently than most who have them would, but they have been invaluable. Netters paintings and discriptions are far superiour to most other Anatomy and Physiology products and books. I recently bought 6 different packs of science flash cards. I was disappointed with most of them because they were essentially nothing but English-style questions on one side and answers on the other. I could do that myself, using index cards! <br /> <br />What I was looking for were flash cards with diagrams, where structures are pointed to with numbered arrows and you have to come up with the term that identifies it: with the answers on the back side of the card. That I cannot do myself. And that is what these flash cards are! The images - which are in color - are excellent too, and cover the topic of neuroscience in great detail.
	Cognition, Brain, and Consciousness: Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience
	By: Bernard J. Baars, Nicole M. Gage ISBN: 0123736773 Publisher: Academic Press Release Date: 11 June, 2007 Bioscience book rank: 34767	Yes this is an introductory text with the necessary starting points on the origins, importance of, and framework for studying cognitive neuroscience. And like introductory texts on neuroscience, it breaks down brain functions into separate chapters (e.g., vision, hearing, language, memory). But that's where the similarities with typical texts end. None of the chapters are dry; there is typically a conversational tone and always, a focus on the big picture - how the mind works. They add just enough clinical data and interesting asides to enrich the material without bogging it or the reader down. There is no skimping on illustrations and imaging and this enhances the material even further. The end result is that by the end of each chapter you know the material very well and wouldn't you know it, you've started thinking about how the mind really works and some of the philosophical implications of brain function. That's more than I expect from most textbooks, so I think the authors are being a bit modest in calling this book an introduction to cognitive neuroscience; it is that and much more. I am a clinical psychiatrist and neuroscience aficionado who happens to be friends with one editor and one writer of COGNITION, BRAIN, AND CONSCIOUSNESS. Naturally, nothing in my social relationships with these two principles will influence in the least my objective and judicious review of this volume. <br /> <br />Ah, this last sentence! Do you think it is likely to be true or false or somewhere in between? The current scientific understanding of these kind of cognitive ambiguities, and a plethora of other topics, is well served in this uniformly careful account of contemporary studies of mind and brain. As Dr. Baars asserts in the Preface, modern neuroscience is a "marriage of the cognitive and brain sciences". Identify some of the many academic disciplines attending the wedding party, and you will find, among the usual suspects, some brand-new, still wet behind the ears areas of study like neurotheology, theoretical neurobiology and array tomography. How will they ever communicate with the reader? Fortunately, the two editors qua event planners are more than up to the task and express in clear sentences the broad themes emerging from the multi-disciplinary babel. <br /> <br />The textbook's organization follows a conventional course in order to follow "the gentlest learning curve possible": <br /> <br /> <br />Mind and brain - Bernard J. Baars. <br />A framework - Bernard J. Baars. <br />Neurons and their connections - Bernard J. Baars. <br />The tools: Imaging the living brain - Bernard J. Baars and Thomas Ramsoy. <br />The brain - Bernard J. Baars. <br />Vision - Frank Tong and Joel Pearson. <br />Hearing and speech - Nicole M. Gage. <br />Attention and consciousness - Bernard J. Baars. <br />Learning, memory and knowledge - Morris Moscovitch, Jason M. Chein, Deborah Talmi, and Melanie Cohn. <br />Thinking and Problem Solving - Bernard J. Baars. <br />Language - Bernard J. Baars. <br />Goals, executive control, and action - Elkhonon M. Goldberg and Dmitri H. Bougakov. <br />Emotion - Katharine McGovern. <br />Social Cognition: Perceiving the mental states of others - Katharine McGovern. <br />Development - Nicole M. Gage and Mark H. Johnson. <br />Appendices. <br />A. Neural Models: a Route to Cognitive Brain Theory - Igor Aleksander. <br />B. Methods for observing the living brain - Thomas Ramsoy, Daniela Balslev, and Olaf Paulson. <br /> <br />The 16 authors of these chapters bring not only outstanding expertise but scholarly passion to their subjects. The two editors have done a masterful job insuring the writing is done at similar levels of detail and generalization, helped by the fact that the senior editor wrote seven and co-authored one of the 15 chapters. Fortunately, Dr. Baars' writing (he is well known as the author of A COGNITIVE THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS) remains among the best organized and most lucid of modern neuroscientists. <br /> <br />The book pays homage to William James. In 1890, James was a committed empiricist with command of the then-current literature of the emerging field of scientific psychology. The page in the Reference section of CBC which begins with James' own THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY lists 43 texts, 26 of which were published during or after the year 2000. By extension, this means that 600 of the 1000 citations are less then seven years old. In the book world, that's as current as it gets. Following now standard practice, the book supervenes on a supportive website - textbooks.elsevier.com - which provides all figures in electronic format with export to Powerpoint, as well as supplementary material including movies. <br /> <br />Throughout the book, numerous depictions of difficult concepts approach pedagogical perfection. For example, Baars invites the reader to "grow a brain" and proceeds, through a series of pictures and discussion, to introduce the fundamental features of brain anatomy. By sequentially meeting the major landmarks through cartoons - brainstem, pons, thalami, hippocampus, amygdale, ventricles, basal ganglia, fiber tracts, cerebellum and cortex - the reader is enabled intuitively (subliminally?) to build a brain representation which sticks in the memory. <br /> <br />I reckon the volume aims to be THE primary textbook in cognitive neuroscience, the canonical statement, as it were. I think it makes a good beginning toward that end. But consider. The most widely used textbook in pharmacology is Hardman. Limbard and Gilman's THE PHRAMACOLOGICAL BASIS OF THERAPEUTICS. My tenth edition weighs in at 2148 pages. In computational neuroscience, it's Arbib's HANDBOOK OF BRAIN THEORY AND NEURAL NETWORKS, 1290 pages. In basic physics I will go with THE FEYNMAN LECTURES ON PHYSICS. The pages aren't sequentially numbered, but there are three volumes making, I would guess, around 1500 pages. <br /> <br />This poor text is a puny 546 pages. However, the baby is so brilliant and beautiful, I pray that in the second edition there is a more complete account. Here is what is needed: <br /> <br />* A section which maps the entire landscape of mind-brain studies, allowing the reader to see clearly where cognitive neuroscience is located. <br />* A chapter on neurochemistry and neuropharmacology. <br />* A chapter on the cognitive unconscious and context. <br />* A chapter on how the brain does mathematics and music. <br />* A chapter on the paranormal and the brain (just because people are always asking). <br />* A chapter on play, fun, humor, altruism, cooperation, creativity. <br />* A chapter on evolutionary neuroscience. <br />* A chapter on spiritual experiences and the brain. (Still following the lead of William James.) <br />* A chapter on consciousness. <br />* A chapter devoted to current attempts at "whole brain" theories. <br />* A section on what's hot in current research and what's needed. <br /> <br />In summary: COGNITION, BRAIN, AND CONSCIOUSNESS provides a somewhat curtailed overview of the emerging science of mind and brain. It is accessible to students and interested readers at all levels. It is beautifully illustrated and pedagogically advanced. It is the best of its kind now available. <br /> <br /> I couldn't agree more with the editorial reviews of this book. It is excellent! <br /> <br />I'm reading the book just out of interest in the subject matter and I'm not involved professionally with neurology. I have recently read several books on the topic though and that list would include: <br /> <br /> . Mapping the Mind - Rita Carter's excellent survey of brain functions (similar in some ways to this book and really excellent!). <br /> . Exploring Consciousness - Another very good Rita Carter text. <br /> . The Neuron - Cell and Molecular Biology - Irwin Levitan and Leonard K Kaczmarek's 500+ page non-light reading but fascinating book on neurons. <br /> . Quest for Consciousness - Christopher Koch's (and Francis Crick's) insightful search for the neural correlates of consciousness. <br /> . Wider Than The Sky - Gene Edelman's equally fascinating perspective on the same type of research. <br /> . In Search of Memory - Eric Kandel's part autobiography, part neurology book. <br /> . Etc. <br /> <br />Each of those books were wonderful and I plan on going back and reading them again just to see how my perspective has changed from what I've learned since the last time. But, if I had to pick one book to provide a survey of how the brain is organized and functions I believe this is the book I would chose. It is actually the first textbook I can remember reading in the past 40 years but it didn't remind me of the textbooks of that era. <br /> <br />Cognition, Brain, and Consciousness has the following assets: <br /> <br /> . It is well organized and well indexed. <br /> . The writing style seems to take advantage of the authors' understanding of the learning process. <br /> . It provides more than a casual introduction to each of the topics it covers. <br /> . I thought it provided a balanced view of conflicting theories and approaches, giving the pros and cons of each. <br /> . The book is extremely well illustrated throughout. Each illustration seems very thoughtfully composed and selected. <br /> . It should, as the editorial reviews suggest, appeal to a range of readers from "student through established researcher." <br /> <br />There are some typographical problems but they are minor (e.g. References to Appendix C - which doesn't exist). I ordered the book before its release date and actually received it before June 11th so I can imagine typos happening. There appears to be extensive support for the material on the publisher's website but I haven't checked that out as yet. <br /> <br />So I'm really writing this to thank the Bernard Baars and Nicole Gage for providing such amazing material. It is really outstanding and even though it is expensive I would say without hesitation that it is more than worth its price!
	Netter's Atlas of Human Neuroscience (Netter Basic Science)
	By: David L. Felten, Ralph Jozefowicz ISBN: 1929007167 Publisher: Saunders Release Date: 01 July, 2003 Bioscience book rank: 213982	Although I have no substantial formal education in biology or medicine, I have had a keen interest in human neuroscience for the past fifteen years or so. During that time, I have read perhaps thirty books, ranging from books intended for a wide audience to textbooks used in medical schools. Probably the greatest difficulty for me has been remembering the anatomy. I would find, for example, a reference to the cingulate cortex, which had been defined earlier in a book, and I would have to look up the name in the index, go to the page where it was defined, and then resume my reading. Frequently, there would be references to several structures, which had been defined independently, and without reference to one another. <br /> <br />This book brings it all together. The drawings are excellent, showing locations, relationships, and shapes far better than any photograph, magnetic resonance image, etc., could, in large part because of the use of color. There are twenty pages of horizontal and coronal sections of the brain in which both black-and-white magnetic resonance images and drawings are shown. <br /> <br />In addition to the anatomic content at a gross level, this book covers the anatomy of neurons and synapses and the process of neurotransmission very well. <br /> <br />The detail of the text and the drawings means that this is probably not a good choice as an introduction to neuroscience, but I'm definitely going to have it by my side for all my future reading about the subject. This is a very useful atlas. Like most Netter illustrations, the pictures are beautiful. The index is much too sparse, which means that you sometimes have to spend time flipping through the book to find a diagram that you know is in there somewhere. This isn't quite as bad as it could be since the book is divided into sections which make it a little easier to track things down, but it can be frustrating at times. If you're REALLY serious about learning neuroanatomy, I recommend this as an adjunct to Duaine Haines' atlas of neuroanatomy. They complement one another well. The Haines' atlas lacks color and shows most things in slices, but it has real photos in it and MRI images as well, while the Netter atlas doesn't show as many structures as Haines' atlas does. The brainstem nuclei, for example, are much better represented in the Haines' atlas. However, what the Netter's atlas does show, it shows in a manner more conducive to conveying the three-dimensional anatomy. I'm a doctoral student in Psychiatric Rehabilitation, a field which focuses on functional rehabilitation for people with serious mental illnesses. I purchased this book to help me make sense of the relevant research in neuroscience and psychopharmacology, for which it has proven extremely valuable. I highly recommend this book for anyone trying to get an initial handle on neuroanatomy.
	The Developing Mind: Toward a Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience
	By: Daniel J. Siegel ISBN: 1572304537 Publisher: The Guilford Press Release Date: 09 April, 1999 Bioscience book rank: 77811	As I start this review, I want to say that I'm not a mental health professional. I'd been so used to psychological texts falling into 2 distinct categories: texts written by MD's explaining how everything wrong with you involves an excess of seratonin (or some other chemical) or books written by clinicians talking essentially only about their personal clinical experiences. This book breaks (or combines maybe..?) these stereotypes in a readable, detailed, and very well-supported (~500 references) account of how experiences actually create biological malfunctions. <br /> <br /> A brief note to other readers who might also not be mental health professionals: While this book doesn't really assume you know anything at all, it can be dense at times. However, Dr. Siegel goes out of his way to make sure that you can follow along by rehashing earlier points that might have been easily confused. <br /> <br /> Outlining important points in italics, Dr. Siegel proceeds through the entire range of mental development. He starts out with the more basic processes involved in mental functioning (memory, attachment, emotion, states-of-minds) and shows how these systems are shaped in an infant by a responsive caregiver into forming an emotionally healthy adult. He also talks about how mental disorders can develop when these various systems are either inadequately stimulated or actively stimied. <br />I found the chapter on attachment particularly remarkable. As he explained the various types of attachments and how they were dependant on parental-child interactions (all backed up, of course, by various clinical data), I felt like I could make sense of some events from my own childhood. <br /> <br /> This book should DEFINITELY be read by the hordes of biologically oriented psychiatrists out there. Its also a wonderful read for people who might want some insight into why they've always had problems making friends, controlling their emotions, or repeating the abusive behavioral patterns of their parents. This is a uniquely important book! Maybe those who so vividly expressed their disappointent in their reviews, misunderstood the title! The book is about DEVELOPING MIND, which means about how certain class of brain processes we call 'mind' come into being as the brain rewires itself.<p>Most of the literature seems to be assuming that these proceses somehow come into being and focus on deciphering their meaning and purpose assuming the 'mind' to be like a computer in the skull we are born with which is ready to use and it is suficient to switch it on.<p>But clearly, this less ingteresting frame, since the 'mind' never remains the same as a kind of static 'thing.' What is fascinating, is its continuous development process. The book presents very readable explanatory model. Minsky says that "brains use processes that change themselves[...] The principal activities of brains are making changes in themselves." Siegel explains how this happens and this is a fascinating narration. Siegel writes clearly and accurately. He is passionate about the mind and it's development. This book is written at a college level which means your average reader won't be picking it up. You'll take a grand tour of brain/mind development, memory,attachment, emotion and interpersonal relationships. This is must reading for the clinician and parents who want to do it right. This book deserves 6 stars but there are only five to offer. This was a wonderful read! Kevin Hogan,...
	Cognitive Neuroscience, Second Edition
	By: Michael S. Gazzaniga, Richard B. Ivry, George R. Mangun ISBN: 0393977773 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Release Date: January, 2002 Bioscience book rank: 229697	This is a well written and comprehensive book by some of the best known researchers. I will not review most of the scientific content as it should be largely unexceptionable from these well known researchers, but provide here a list of typos and comments which I sent to the authors. Those interested in the discussions of consciousness and behavior may wish to see my other reviews. <br /> <br />General comments: <br />1. This book like thousands of others trips over the vexing gender problem of "his or her" or "he or she" etc. Though it is now politically correct to use both and many authors reverse the sexism by using "she" I find it very distracting especially since "they, them and their" work perfectly in every case with no sexism implied. This simple truth seems to escape everyone. Perhaps one of these days the Kleinefelter's support group may organize and assault all the text writers for not using "his AND her or it's"! <br /> <br />2. Here are some really stunning illusions (when they work) not mentioned here and rarely elsewhere. They are some of the most striking things you can do in your living room that reveal the tenuous nature of our perception. It would be a good way to start discussions of perception, realism, reality and certainty etc in psychology and philosophy. <br /> <br />I'm abstracting it from a Xerox I made some years ago from a book. <br /> <br />First illusion: Sit blindfolded in a chair with Person B sitting on another chair in front of you facing same direction. <br /> <br />Have Person A stand on your right side and tell them "take my right hand and put my index finger on Person B's nose. Then move my hand rhythmically so that the index finger repeatedly taps and strokes their nose, randomly like a Morse code. At the same time, use your left hand to stroke my nose with the same rhythm and timing.--in PERFECT synchrony." <br />After 30 or 40 seconds you may get the feeling that your nose has stretched out to 3 feet or that you are touching your nose at 3 feet away. The more random the better the illusion. Works about half the time. Author says it shows "that the mechanisms of perception are mainly involved in extracting statistical correlations from the world to create a model that is temporarily useful". <br /> <br />Second illusion: get a dummy rubber hand and then construct a 2 ft by 2 ft cardboard wall and place it on a table in front of you. Put your right hand behind the cardboard and the dummy hand in front of the cardboard. Have someone stroke your hand and the dummy synchronously while you look at the dummy. In a few seconds many people experience the stroking arising from the dummy. <br /> <br />Third illusion: Sit in front of a table and hide your left hand under it. Have someone tap and stroke the surface of the table with their right hand (as you watch) and use their hand simultaneously to stroke your left hand, which is hidden from view. You must not see the movement of their left hand(use cardboard partition if needed). After a minute, you may experience the taps and strokes as coming from under the table surface. "on the few occasions when I accidentally made a much longer stroke on the table surface than on the subjects hidden hand, the person exclaimed that his hand felt lengthened or stretched to absurd proportions." <br /> <br /> <br />CORRECTIONS AND COMMENTS ON THE TEXT <br />P 98 middle --free FROM interference <br />P 151 line 1--SUPRANUCLEAR <br />P 159 rt col middle nerve fibers INNERVATING the <br />P186 legend fig 5.24 despite HIS...HE clearly <br />P256 fig 7.7 ARTICULATORY <br />P279 fig 7.28. what are the black areas in the scans? <br />P284 fig legend. Change SOLID line to RED line and DASHED line to BLUE line. <br />P310 left col. Middle connection syndrome now KNOWN <br />P326 left col middle--the planum TEMPORALE'S <br />P334 MILESTONES left col. Bottom PHENOMENA <br />P359 fig 9.38 EXEMPLARS misspelled 4 times. Fig legend bottom -characteristic OF left.. <br />P359 rt col bottom--in a single FOCUS.. <br />P367 fig 9.43 says -"completely crossed", but left col. Bottom says "almost all" <br />P418 top left--rats with striatal lesions{do not?} produce.... What does this mean? <br />P441 rt col middle, pg 442 fig. legend--auditorally--auditorially is more common and AURALLY sounds sweeter. <br />P463 fig. 11.32--figs reversed?--if not then it's not clear what is being shown. <br />P471 left col middle--Maybe it was not published when this book was written, but it's now clear babies have a diving reflex -they hold their breath and start to swim--when put underwater. This is shown beautifully in one sequence in the BBC series "The Human Body". <br />P491 insert rt col middle--omit "six to eight" fetuses.. <br />P503 left col middle--eliminate Semicolon ---- birds; wings make sense. <br />And third, a device's structure is explained when one... <br />P506 top.--I'm sure they will get nailed for this one and I too just don't see why the phylogeneticists view is foolish. Nobody says chimps MUST have language, only that it is reasonable to look for its precursors there. <br />P511. Since this book so nicely includes material on evolution and as long as they are telling the moth story they might as well tell the moth mite story. I read it over 30 years ago so it may have changed by now but this is what I recall. Their ears are infected by mites but the mites seem to have evolved to stay put on one ear. Presumably they were selected for this as a one eared moth might still escape bats. <br />P524 rt col middle the exponent of 10 dropped down here to read 1010. <br />Also the comment by Chomsky seems unclear as it could be taken to say that it IS selected which is not what they say he says. <br /> <br />P528 left col bottom--people certainly DO try to.... And Searle does NOT say we never understand consciousness etc, only as you note in the next sentence that we will not with our current descriptors. One point is that we don't even know how to recognize what a explanation or description of consiousness, thinking etc, looks like. <br /> <br />P530 Searle refers to Dennet's view that our mental life is illusory (or something else which amounts to it) as "an intellectual pathology" and he reviewed Dennet's book as "Consciousness Explained Away". . Yes, I know he rails about Searle not responding to his criticism of the Chinese Room but Searle has been answering countless objections for about 30 years (eg, in Hofstadter and Dennet's `The Mind's I' (1981)) and says there is nothing new to answer. The Chinese Room is the most famous paper in modern philosophy. In it Searle shows how it is clear, from a strictly logical point of view, that digital computation is not the same as thinking and further that we don't even know how to recognize a process as thinking when it's not being done by a person. No, the Turing test does not solve this problem. He is NOT saying it's impossible to make machines that think and points out that we are putative biocomputers that think. These are extremely simple logical points but they escape most people. For further discussion of all these issues and how Wittgenstein anticipated them brilliantly some 75 years ago please see my review of Hoftstadter's "I am a Strange Loop". <br /> <br />I go for a dip in Wittgenstein when philosophy and psychology bog down trying to explain the mind (ie., always)--still to me the best cure for philosophy, though not an easy study. Also, since they mention color language, if you have never read it I recommend Wittgenstein's "Remarks on Colour" for the most insightful discussion of the use of color words I've ever seen. Sadly the author of the MIT Encyclopedia article on color (and nearly all other discussions of color) are unaware of it but of course this is part of the collective amnesia for the work of our greatest natural psychologist. <br /> <br />P535 I know about Purkinje, eyetrackers and stabilization and have seen this instrument in operation, but the details of the operation of the eyetracker and the exptl. technique still seem opaque. <br /> <br />P549 Summary--John Searle(and I) do not agree that consciousness is a great mystery anymore than wetness is a great mystery of water. Consciousness is just a property of the brain as wetness is of water. See the papers on his web page (as of 05-2005) at UC Berkeley on his philosophy of biological naturalism or any of his recent books on the mind and the brain-- marvelous antidotes for reductionism, holism and philosophy in general. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> Research in cognitive neuroscience has exploded in the last two decades, mostly due to the rise of experimental techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission topography, but also due to the ability now to simulate neuronal behavior computationally. This book, written by leading experts in the field is written for the student in mind, so anyone with a strong curiosity about what has been accomplished in cognitive neuroscience up till now will gain a lot from reading the book. The study of the brain is fascinating and there is every indication that a thorough understanding of cognitive processes, including the nature of consciousness, will be achieved in this century. <br /> <br />Just a small sample of some of the questions that arise from the reading of the book include: <br />1. What is the cause of akinetopsia, i.e. loss of motion perception? <br />2. What is the relationship between learning and memory? <br />3. How limited is short-term memory and where are sensory memories stored? <br />4. Why were `working memory' models proposed and what evidence is there to support them? <br />5. What is the difference between declarative and nondeclarative memories? <br />6. What is the connection between amnesia and the medial temporal lobe? <br />7. Just how accurate are the experimental techniques of PET and fMRI? <br />8. Is damage to the hippocampus sufficient to block the formation of new long-term memories? <br />9. Does damage to the medial temporal lobe and diencephalic memory systems affect both episodic and semantic memory? <br />10. What brain systems support procedural memory? <br />11. Is there any evidence that brain lesions can affect the perceptual representation system but leaving the declarative memory untouched? <br />12. How much is known about the molecular mechanisms of synaptic strengthening in long-term potentiation? <br />13. Just how much is known about the neural organization of language? <br />14. What evidence is there for domain-specific knowledge systems that are evolutionarily adapted? <br />15. What is the nature of the segmentation problem and what is its relevance in the neuronal modeling of language use and acquisition? <br />16. Is reading represented by a specialized input system? <br />17. What are the differences between the modular and interactive models of language comprehension? <br />18. What evidence is there for the garden-path model of syntactic analysis? <br />19. What is the nature of agrammatic aphasia and what causes it? <br />20. What is semantic paraphasia what causes it? <br />21. What is the nature of Broca's aphasia? <br />22. What connection, if any, is there between the size of the corpus callosum and autism? <br />23. Why, from an evolutionary perspective, is it advantageous to have hemispheric specialization? <br />24. How does the frequency hypothesis explain hemispheric asymmetries in visual perception? <br />25. How effective are the computational models of visual system? <br />26. What experiments indicate that cortical cell number cannot by itself fully explain human intelligence? <br />27. In contrast to nonhuman animals, why do humans try to find patterns in sequences of events, even though they are informed explicitly that the sequences are random? <br />28. What evidence exists for a `generative assembling device' in the left hemisphere? <br />29. How are movement plans represented? <br />30. What is the function of "mirror cells?" <br />31. To what degree does learning play in producing purposeful actions? <br />32. Do representations within the motor cortex change as a function of practice? <br />33. What is the timing hypothesis of the role of the cerebellum in motor learning? <br />34. What causes Parkinson's disease? <br />35. What are the executive functions? <br />36. What is the difference between working memory and associative memory? <br />37. How is information activated and maintained in working memory? <br />38. What is the nature of recency memory? <br />39. What is the dynamic filtering mechanism and what experimental evidence is there to support it? <br />40. What are schema control units and what role do they play in response selection? <br />41. How can emotion be defined in order to carry out a neuroscientific science of emotion? <br />42. What role does the amygdala play in the processing of emotional stimuli? <br />43. Are the neural systems of emotion and cognition independent? Interdependent? <br />44. What is a somatic marker and what role does it play in decision-making? <br />45. What neural systems are responsible for controlling facial expressions? <br />46. What is genetic specificity and genetic pleiotropy? <br />47. How can one determine whether a neuronal structure or behavior is functionally significant to the organism in the environment to which is adapted or whether it is an epiphenomenon of evolution? <br />48. What is the role, if any, of subconscious processing? <br />49. What is the nature of access-consciousness? <br />50. How close are neuroscientists to a science of consciousness? This book is not intended for the general reader, reader with cellular neuroscience background, but has a target audience of advanced undergraduate or graduate level students with relevant background. Also would be useful for the psychology professional without specific or with dated cognitive neuroscience background, or others intending a research or applied clinical career in the area. Appropriate background would necessarily be at least an undergraduate course in cognitive psychology, with additional help provided by biological psychology or a medical professional in neurology. Discussions of principles and mechanisms are at a "functional machinery" level and thus would not make sense to those without some previous training in those principles. It just isn't a basic text, thus, no glossary of basic terms is included. Yes, the material is both abstract and complex, but so is brain function, and we are just beginning to learn. There are very, very few textbooks that survey this area which only became a separate field of study sometime around 1986. Other reading material in the field consists entirely of professional level chapters in compiled and edited texts. The only other broad survey text that I know of is Marie Banich's book on the related area of Cognitive Neuropsychology.
	Biological Psychology: An Introduction to Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience
	By: Mark R. Rosenzweig, S. Marc Breedlove, Neil V. Watson ISBN: 0878937544 Publisher: Sinauer Associates, Inc. Release Date: June, 2004 Bioscience book rank: 226751	Book came quickly. It's good if you like to learn... otherwise it would work better to beat yourself in the face with. I have used both the first and second editions of this text in courses for first-year graduate students in a Psy.D. program. The text is clear, the illustrations excellent, as are the color overheads. This is at exactly the right level for students who will be clinicians using this information in understanding and dealing with clients directly (as opposed to researchers). I had the chance to give a overlook to prof. M.Rosenzweig text "Biological Psychology...", talking with my assistant teacher, I said, at last a nice, and good text for undergraduate student that are not going to be medicine student, but other profesional. This is the text for a change in the teaching of neuroscience; the result of it use will be clear at december 2000. the reasons for this: - clear use of history. - great use of design in each theme treated. - all the aids (cd, etc) are exactly what a beginnig student need. - the use of real neuroanatomy part, are perfectly complement by the pictures, diagram in the text. profs. M. Rosenzweig, A. leiman & S.M. Breedlove thanks from Chile.
	Fundamental Neuroscience, Third Edition
	By: Larry R. Squire, Floyd E. Bloom, Nicholas C. Spitzer ISBN: 0123740193 Publisher: Academic Press Release Date: 11 February, 2008 Bioscience book rank: 35406	This textbook is a very detailed and very up-to-date exposition of Neuroscience, and in my view, for the more advanced student it is one of the best books out there. What it is NOT is a simple, concise introduction for people who are studying the nervous system for the first time. If you are taking an entry-level Neuroscience course you are likely to be overwhelmed by the amount of detail, and, like some of the other reviewers who gave this book a bad rap, might blame the book for the fact that you can only take in so much detail in a first sitting, and fail to see the forest for all the trees. So if you are new to Neuroscience, read something like Bear et al "Neuroscience - Exploring the Brain" first, and only once you have absorbed that, turn to this beautifully detailed book for a much closer look at the subject. The chapters on Vision by Clay Reid and the Hearing chapters by Brown in this book are quite simply and without a doubt among the best textbook chapters on these topics anywhere, (and much better than anything you will find in Kandel!) I'm a clinical academic neurologist with an MS in neuroscience some 25 years ago, and I decided to read through this text as a means of bringing myself up-to-date in the field. This textbook accomplished that task admirably. I will agree with some critics that parts of it were far too detailed, especially the sections on molecular neurobiology, where too often things got bogged down with discussions of a protein's biophysical properties, for example. Another caveat is that there are some production defects--the pages around 200 are not in the right order, and I found a few diagrams that were mislabelled. But the illustrations are really gorgeous. I've made extensive use of the CD, which contains all the figures and their legends, for Power Point presentations to the neurology residents I teach. I would suggest that future editions of the CD incorporate some videos and animated diagrams that could better illustrate some concepts, e.g., details of signal transduction, which is REALLY complex and was hard to follow in the text. But Kandels text is now several years older and as the pace of neuroscience is so incredibly rapid, this text contains more of the latest info. This text is not appropiate for any for introductory class to neuroscience at any level (whether grad or undergrad). The depth and detail leaves the reader confused at best. Perhaps it is suitable for an advanced gradute seeking to remedy any detail oriented holes. For all others, it is a precursor to a headache.<br> The smart money would go with the Kandel who clearly defines <br>his purpose at the outset of his classic book.<br> (I notice that the reviewer ,who bestowed the text 4 stars, and the author both call San Diego their home.)
	The Hippocampus Book (Oxford Neuroscience Series)
	By: Per Andersen, Richard Morris, David Amaral, Tim Bliss, John O'Keefe ISBN: 0195100271 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA Release Date: 02 November, 2006 Bioscience book rank: 81231	Readers who are interested in this book, might want to look over an article published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, entitled: <br />"Hippocampal activation in patients with mild cognitive impairment is necessary for successful memory encoding" by T T Kircher et al., <br />JNNP, 2007;78:812-818. <br />QUOTE (CONCLUSION) "These results suggest that in patients with MCI, an increase in MTL activation is necessary for successful memory encoding. Hippocampal activation may help to link newly learned information to items already stored in memory. Increased activation in MTL regions in MCI may reflect a compensatory response to the beginning of AD pathology". <br />[MCI = mild cognitive impairment; MTL = medial temporal lobe]. I have been interested in the hippocampus - and indeed the whole limbic system - for many years and this is a superb review of our current knowledge about this essential region of the brain. <br /> <br />I was thinking that people who might be interested in this magnum opus will not need to be told what the hippocampus is. But for those of us who like to pick up things by browsing reviews, let me explain. It is a small part of the brain in the deep parts of the temporal lobes. It is named hippocampus because it is thought to resemble a seahorse. Although German pathologists were convinced that it looked more like a silk worm, so for years that's what the Germans called it. <br /> <br />It is primarily involved in the formation of new memories and in navigation. But despite its extreme importance it is easily damaged by hypoglycemia, anoxia or an array of toxins, particularly alcohol. It is also one of the first regions of the brain to suffer damage in Alzheimer's disease. Therefore the hippocampus has become one of the most widely studies regions in the brain, with almost 78,000 research papers at last count. Yet it is many years since there we last had a single comprehensive source of information on it. <br /> <br />It says in the preface that this book is an "attempt to provide a reasonably comprehensive review of hippocampal research, as viewed through many eyes and collected with a wide variety of methods. <br /> <br />The book consists of over 800 large pages and there are sixteen chapters by some of the biggest names in the field of "hippocampology." <br /> <br />1. The Hippocampal Formation, by Per Andersen, Richard Morris, David Amaral, Timothy Bliss, and John O'Keefe <br />2. Historical Perspective: Proposed Functions, Biological Characteristics, and Neurobiological Models of the Hippocampus, by Per Andersen, Richard Morris, David Amaral, Timothy Bliss, and John O'Keefe <br />3. Hippocampal Neuroanatomy, by David Amaral and Pierre Lavenex <br />4. Morphological Development of the Hippocampus, by Michael Frotscher and Laszlo Seress <br />5. Structural and Functional Properties of Hippocampal Neurons, by Nelson Spruston and Chris McBain <br />6. Synaptic Function, by Dimitri M. Kullmann <br />7. Molecular Mechanisms of Synaptic Function in the Hippocampus: Neurotransmitter Exocytosis, Glutamatergic, GABAergic and Cholinergic Transmission, by Pavel Osten, William Wisden, and Rolf Sprengel <br />8. Local Circuits, by Eberhard Buhl and Miles Whittington <br />9. Structural Plasticity, by Elizabeth Gould <br />10. Synaptic Plasticity in the Hippocampus, by Timothy Bliss, Graham Collingridge, and Richard Morris <br />11. Hippocampal Neurophysiology in the Behaving Animal, by John O'Keefe <br />12. Functional Roll of the Human Hippocampus, by Craig Stark <br />13. Theories of Hippocampal Function, by Richard Morris <br />14. Computational Models of the Spatial and Mnemonic Functions of the Hippocampus, by Neil Burgess <br />15. Stress and the Hippocampus, by Richard Morris <br />16. The Hippocampus and Human Disease, by Matthew Walker, Dennis Chan, and Maria Thom <br /> <br />This is the best book on the hippocampus that I know of in any of the major European languages. The editors acknowledge the two problems with the book. First the literature is enormous and growing day by day. Indeed, between the time that the book went to the printers and this review, almost 5,000 more papers have come out. Second the breadth of the field constantly expands, as new technologies and methods are applied to understanding it. So the authors and not only neuroscientists but also range from mathematicians to clinicians. <br /> <br />This is the "go to" book for anyone wanting to gain an understanding of this crucial region of the brain, and who needs to get their bearings before diving into that fast flowing river of new papers.