From Neuron to Brain

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Summary: Clear, concise, helpful text for a beginning grad student!
Review: I am a first year graduate student "accidentally" entering the field of neuroscience. I needed a basic text to help me "catch up". This book has been wonderful! The authors' have a great writing style- easy to read. More importantly, the authors are expert at choosing and presenting important, basic aspects of neurobiology to inexperienced neuroscientists without bogging the reader down with unnecessary and confusing detail. In particular, the authors thoroughly discuss ion channels and their role in neuronal communication, presenting electrophysiology as a valuable tool for studying these channels. This text was "just right" for me. However, if you are an advanced "neuroscientist", this text might be a bit on the "simple" side.

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Summary: What a book!!!!!!!!
Review: I can't imagine to find a book like this... It's excellent. It has many things that anybody can need in order to know more about this system and this kind of cells.

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Summary: Neurophysiology (History & Evolution)
Review: This book is similar in format and style to Principles of Neural Science by Kandel, Schwartz, & Jessell. Nicholls book is half the length of Kandel's, yet just as good. Colored drawings & diagrams are laced throughout the text. It is strongest in auditory physiology, synaptic transmission, vision physiology, & neural development. Clear graphs and line-drawings of intracellular and extracellular recordings abound. Give this book its chance. It should be on the reading list for Medical & Graduate School.

Rating:
Summary: Neurophysiology (History & Evolution)
Review: This book is similar in format and style to Principles of Neural Science by Kandel, Schwartz, & Jessell. Nicholls book is half the length of Kandel's, yet just as good. Colored drawings & diagrams are laced throughout the text. It is strongest in auditory physiology, synaptic transmission, vision physiology, & neural development. Clear graphs and line-drawings of intracellular and extracellular recordings abound. Give this book its chance. It should be on the reading list for Medical & Graduate School.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A comprehensive update of a neuroscience classic
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: 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.