Neuroscience: A Historical Introduction

by Mitchell Glickstein

An introduction to the structure and function of the nervous system that emphasizes the history of experiments and observations that led to modern neuroscientific knowledge. This introduction to neuroscience is unique in its emphasis on how we know what we know about the structure and function of the nervous system. What are the observations and experiments that have taught us about the brain and spinal cord? The book traces our current neuroscientific knowledge to many and varied sources, including ancient observations on the role of the spinal cord in posture and movement, nineteenth-century neuroanatomists' descriptions of the nature of nerve cells, physicians' attempts throughout history to correlate the site of a brain injury with its symptoms, and experiments on the brains of invertebrates. After an overview of the brain and its connections to the sensory and motor systems, Neuroscience discusses, among other topics, the structure of nerve cells; electrical transmission in the nervous system; chemical transmission and the mechanism of drug action; sensation; vision; hearing; movement; learning and memory; language and the brain; neurological disease; personality and emotion; the treatment of mental illness; and consciousness. It explains the sometimes baffling Latin names for brain subdivisions; discusses the role of technology in the field, from microscopes to EEGs; and describes the many varieties of scientific discovery. The book's novel perspective offers a particularly effective way for students to learn about neuroscience. It also makes it clear that past contributions offer a valuable guide for thinking about the puzzles that remain.

Genres: Neuroscience, History, Medicine, Science

418 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2014

Reviews

[Elizabeth Housewright · Rating 4 out of 5]

My background is quite old here, so this approach worked well, building from first ideas of nerve functions to current thoughts. Well written, broad coverage and good basic information.

[Austin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I write as a neuroscience PhD student. This book starts out very strong. The author does a nice job giving a great intro to various topics in neuroscience that is framed through history and the people who made discoveries. However, with each chapter, the quality decreases and by the end the chapters get pretty bad both in accuracy, presentation, and in number of historical examples. For instance, one of the final chapters on personality and emotion seems to go off topic about brain lesions and only barely mentions emotions by focusing almost exclusively on fear. The mental illness chapter is also weak, first inaccurately stating that mental illness still is broadly categorized between schizophrenia and depression, and then mostly only focusing on the development of some psychiatric drugs. Overall, I am not sure I would recommend this entire book, but the first handful of chapters are excellent. In the appendix it provided a nice list of books for further reading, which I may take it up on as this book didn't hit the mark.