From Neuron to Brain

I'm a 3rd year graduate student in neuroscience, currently studying synaptic transmission with an electrophysiological approach. With biotechnology as an undergrad, let's just say my neurophysiology background was far from being strong. My PI recommended me this book a couple of weeks ago and I'm just loving it. The part on synaptic transmission (chapters 9 to 11) is simply great. I find things that I've read about MANY times before, on books like Kandel's, Fundamental Neuroscience, and many of the classic big textbooks, but none of them deals with this part as this one does. It's kind of the same issues but with a slightly different perspective, a perspective that I think you're able to appreciate more as you gain some experience in the field. Little details, certain experiments that you might have overlooked as a first year student, suddenly make all the sense. I don't think this is an overly simple book. It is really well written, and that's what I think makes it kind of reader-friendly but again, somehow it gets to deal with classical issues and concepts in a much deeper and USEFUL way (particularly for people actually working on this) than the great majority of other textbooks in this area. As I said in the title of my review, I wish I had learned about this book before, and that's the reason I'm writing this. Hope it helps :)

This is an outstanding book - comprehensive, clearly written and beautifully produced, with many useful illustrations.It takes a bottom up approach, starting with the structure of ion channels and their proteins, and moves on to higher levels of structure and function. Because of the current state of knowledge it is necessarily much more detailed regarding the peripheral nervous system and sensory systems than it is regarding most areas of the central nervous system.You may be interested in "Phantoms in the Brain" by Ramachandran, a popular but very meaty book that takes the complementary top down approach - starting with the mind as we experience it and looking at medical cases to see how it is constructed by the brain.

This highly readable textbook is probably the only one that has successfully dealt with the explosive growth of research and discovery in the exciting field of neuroscience. The 4th edition of the classic by Kuffler and Nicholls maintains the clear, logical and coherent presentation of its predecessors while keeping up with the latest work involving a range of techniques, from molecular genetics to functional MRI. The book's emphasis on the experimental and intellectual basis of knowledge in the field makes it ideal for graduate and advanced graduate students, even those with limited scientific background. It is doubtless no accident that the relatively compact new edition has kept the breadth and depth of earlier editions without becoming unwieldy. Its only real shortcoming is its hefty price, although it is still below most of the competition. It would be nice to see a paperback edition.

Comprehensive introduction to the field of neurobiology. Good descriptions of molecular level experiments are provided. As well, a full chapter is devoted to an overview of the nervous systems of the leech and Aplysia.

"From Neuron to brain" is a very good thorough text book, with a level that I would rate as a good MA or PhD class. Altough it is not as detailed as for example Candells book, it has two great advantages: It is concise, and quite readable. It definetely rates as a TEXT book that you can actually read, unlike some other books whose use in the end is often a REFERENCE guide, not a text to learn from.