Behavioral Neurobiology: The Cellular Organization of Natural Behavior

by Thomas J. Carew

Behavioral Neurobiology provides a novel treatment of the neural basis of behavior. The pedagogical premise of the book is that general insights into the neuronal organization of behavior can be gained by examining neural solutions that have evolved in animals to solve problems encountered in
their particular environmental niches. Therefore, rather than organizing the chapters around general themes, such as "Motor Systems" or "Learning and Memory," the author presents in-depth "case studies" of individual animals; themes clearly emerge, but take on additional meaning by being considered
in a real-world behavioral context.

While each chapter focuses on the world of a single animal, chapters are clustered into three major thematic Sensory Worlds, Motor Strategies, and Behavioral Plasticity. At the end of each section is a "Coda" highlighting general principles of neuronal organization common to the chapters
within it.

In writing the book, Dr. Carew has drawn on his many years of undergraduate teaching at Yale University. Behavioral Neurobiology does not presume a strong biological background, and is therefore suitable for a general undergraduate audience. However, the material is treated in sufficient depth to
make the book useful for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in behavioral neurobiology or neuroethology as well.

Genres: Textbooks, Biology, Science, Neuroscience, Nonfiction

419 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Reenie · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a textbook, it's surprisingly enjoyable. And I mean that generally, rather than specifically, because I have a terrible habit of finding most textbooks enjoyable. I read them to pass the time, in fact - I justify this by pointing out to myself that it's better than my other procrastinating tendencies (I haven't played sudoku in months! If you know me, you know that's Massive).

Anyway, regarding this book specifically - it's written with undergrads in mind, and that's pretty clear when you read it. It's not complicated, and some of the fascinating stories in it are slightly dumbed down, if you're familiar with the actual literature. We're talking about fields of very specialised research that are at least 40 years old, so to fit in a book like this, of course it's compressed and glossed through.

On the other hand, that's actually not a bad point. The writing is engaging (Carew doesn't spare the puns, or the amusing observations about whichever invetebrate, pesty mammal, or irritating bird each chapter is devoted to), and well balanced between explaining the background and getting in depth into how key experiments were run, and what they showed.

Each chapter is devoted to a different animal model - everything from seaslugs to grasshoppers to toads to bats to rats gets its turn - and the model organism survey format also gives an appreciation for the vast array of approaches that you can use to study neuroscience, in a form that I think would be readable even with the barest of science backgrounds, and introductory to new approaches and bodies of research for those of us that do.

[Chris Klink]

ook

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this for one of my classes and it's really interesting. Even if you never had any neuroscience classes in school, it's an easy read.

[DJ]

great text on neuroethology