Rating: 
Summary: Comprehensive in scope
Review: This book, a collection of 65 articles written by leading experts in the different areas of neurology and brain biology, could draw a large audience of readers, including those interested in brain modeling and artificial intelligence. Space prohibits a comprehensive review, but some of the more interesting discussions include: 1. The evidence for localization of the emotional aspects of behavior in the brain. 2. The role of myelin basic proteins in producing allergic encephalomyelitis and the consequent discussion of a model for multiple sclerosis. 3. The dynamics of polymerization and dynamic instability. 4. The Hodgkin-Huxley model of excitability. 5. The regulation of gene expression by second messengers, the difference in time scales between these and directly gated synaptic actions is particularly interesting. 6. Calculating the probability of transmitter release, release being random and done in quanta. 7. The transplantation of embryonic neurons into an adult brain to promote recovery from brain damage. 8. the experimental techniques used to image the human brain: computerized tomography, positron emission tomography, magnetic resonance imaging. 9. The The hierarchical and parallel organization of sensory systems and motor control. 10. The diagrams of the major ascending somatic sensory systems. 11. The role of rhodopsin in the human visual system. 12. The physics of human hearing. 13. The role of the olfactory receptors in human smell and taste. 14. The skeletal muscles as being low-pass filters of neural input. 15. Genetic markers and Huntington's disease. 16. Sexual differentiation in the nervous system. 17. The model for the induction of LTP.
Rating: 
Summary: excellent coverage of neural basics
Review: This book, more than any other on the subject, remains my bible. Neuron to Brain is good, as well as some others, but this remains the clasic tome. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: advanced neurosciences
Review: This is a tremendous book. I've been using it for teaching since the 2nd edition. I don't know where or how Dr. Kandel (a brand-new Nobel winner) and his co-authors find the time to update this along with all the other writing and research they do, but it's great that they do. The illustrations have caught up to the computer age and are even better than before. The price is astonishing for a medical or graduate school textbook - really a great value.
Rating: 
Summary: A useful reference, but not a good text
Review: This massive book has lots of useful information and informative figures, and the decent index makes it highly likely that you will find what you need. However, using it as a textbook for a course is a ridiculous thing to do, especially if it's an undergraduate course. The amount of material is simply overwhelming, and it would discourage students from pursuing a career in neural science. If you are a neurobiology teacher and are considering using this text in your course, please reconsider. In my opinion (as a neurobiology teacher), a concise and readable text is far more effective.
Rating:
Summary: A useful reference, but not a good text
Review: This massive book has lots of useful information and informative figures, and the decent index makes it highly likely that you will find what you need. However, using it as a textbook for a course is a ridiculous thing to do, especially if it's an undergraduate course. The amount of material is simply overwhelming, and it would discourage students from pursuing a career in neural science. If you are a neurobiology teacher and am considering using this text in your course, please reconsider. In my opinion (as a neurobiology teacher), a concise and readable text is far more effective.
Rating:
Summary: essential text
Review: This text (or perhaps an earlier edition) was a lifeline for me for many years as a undergraduate and postgraduate student of psychology (with semester units in neurophysiology and neuroanatomy). It was completely perfect in that it covers the fundamentals of neuroscience in slightly more detail than one needs (unlike most textbooks which always seem to do everything in slightly less detail). Just like you always feel that you have to be clutching a calculator when you're studying physics, so you need this for any kind of neural science studying. It has clear, lavish pictures and everything is thorough and easy to understand.And, oh boy, what a Book! You really feel that you've got something for your money. It's hefty, it's intellectual, and it looks damned good on the bookshelves. The paper is glossy, everything's set out well, and you feel good every time you refer to it. When I was a student, my general principle was to BUY NO TEXTBOOKS, and this one was very expensive for me at the time, but it was worth it. Probably the most valuable book I had in all my 8 years of formal studying. It contained everything I needed in terms of information on this topic, and on the rare occasions when I had to go further into something, there were very useful references at the end of every chapter. I strongly recommend it. You'll use it for years, and when it's time to move on, it'll be easy to sell.
Rating:
Summary: Adequate Resource
Review: This text is great for basic information, but isn't practical if you are pursuing neuroscience. While it goes over a wide range of topics, it never goes in depth.
If you have a lot of questions, you may want to consider a more advanced neural science text book.
Rating:
Summary: An improvement over previous editions.
Review: While this book (in this and previous incarnations) has been hailed as the "bible" of neuroscience, there are some flaws the potential reader should be made aware of. The first batch of chapters dealing with the machinery of the cell are repetitive in terms of their respective contents. Some judicious editing would have been nice in this section. Although the writing style improves in subsequent chapters, those dealing with the molecular biology of the neuron could be a little clearer. Levitan and Kaczmarek's "The Neuron" could be used to either introduce or supplement these chapters. The illustrations throughout are a major improvement over the last edition's over-use of black and white stick figures. While it is a very good teaching text for the money, check your university bookstore or library for other neuroscience texts which might give a clearer functional overview. In the long gap between this edition and the last a number of good graduate level texts have arisen to fill the need.
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