Foundational Concepts in Neuroscience: A Brain-Mind Odyssey

by David E. Presti

Key concepts in neuroscience presented for the non-medical reader.

A fresh take on contemporary brain science, this book presents neuroscience—the scientific study of brain, mind, and behavior—in easy-to-understand ways with a focus on concepts of interest to all science readers. Rigorous and detailed enough to use as a textbook in a university or community college class, it is at the same time meant for any and all readers, clinicians and non-clinicians alike, interested in learning about the foundations of contemporary brain science. From molecules and cells to mind and consciousness, the known and the mysterious are presented in the context of the history of modern biology and with an eye toward better appreciating the beauty and growing public presence of brain science.

Genres: Neuroscience, Science, Psychology, Stem, Nonfiction

317 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 23, 2015

Reviews

[Always Pouting · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't really have a lot to say about this one because it seems pretty self explanatory what the book is about. It's a book on the general concepts in neuroscience and the book isn't too detailed so it's probably ideal for anyone interested in the subject. I would however say it might help to have some background knowledge about chemistry, biology, or biochemistry because there's a lot of words pertaining to those disciplines that show up in the book. The book does give some background in the beginning so you don't necessarily have to come in with knowledge but it might be a denser read if you don't have any familiarity with the subjects. The book does go over the different parts of the brain and how neurons work and all the terminology you'd need to understand neuroscience though. A good book if you're just looking to get a overview of the field but nothing you wouldn't have heard of if you already have a good foundation with neuroscience.

[Roxann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative, but too many philosophical-biographical tangents for my taste. The writing style is generally clear and straightforward but there are weird passages I had to go back on multiple times. Needs an editor. But I did learn a lot!

[Stefano Baez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good intro to neuroscience. Extremely fasinating the overview on physics and neuroscience future challenges. You are left with a sense humbleness about how little we still know on our mind, brain and physics.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a straight-up science monograph, yet mostly accessible for a non-medical audience. Excellent overviews of foundational concepts in how the brain and nervous system work. My personal favorite part was Dr. Presti's attention to the etymology of different terms. Through this book I learned that "lysis"is Ancient Greek for "to disrupt," and many other term roots I would have not learned about otherwise. I also had fun learning about and recalling multi-syllable enzymes, like acetycholinesterase. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the science of the brain.

[Aric Mayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have studied various topics in the area of neuroscience at different times in my life. I wish I had accessed this amazing, concise overview when I started. He ends each chapter with a haiku. That absolutely nourishes my inner English major and makes the text stand out from dry science texts. If you are curious about this topic then I absolutely recommend starting with Dr. Presti's writing.

[Tiago F · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read my fair share of pop psychology and neuroscience, but I wanted something more in-depth that actually gives you the knowledge to read proper neuroscience and this seemed to be a good fit. I didn't want a massive 600+ page textbook, and this seemed accessible at just under 300 pages.

I was impressed by the introduction and the author's approach to neuroscience. It talks about many existential questions which I didn't expect and how they might relate to neuroscience. This made me very excited for the book. In that sense, it was a bit disappointing because most of book certainly does not help answer those existential concerns, at least in a directly meaningful way. It made me feel a bit cheated and that the author just wanted to try to make it seem more relevant than it actually is. Nevertheless, it excelled in other ways.

It starts with the origins of neuroscience but quickly moves to fundamentals. The basics of how the nervous system and the brain works. It then moves on to basic chemistry, molecular biology, and electrophysiology, and genetics.

I appreciated this intro, and it's largely what I was looking for. It's not exactly the most exciting, but the basics of chemistry and molecular biology, at least to me, is precisely what makes me get lost so easily in neuroscience since they are fields that I have close to zero knowledge in.

They were certainly very superficial introductions, but despite that, they were still helpful for me to revisit some basic high school knowledge that was long forgotten about. Despite being superficial it's still difficult at times and some parts was beyond my head. But it was good enough to get the overall picture across.

After this introduction, it moves on to the more typical neuroscience that you are likely familiar with, at least in terms of what shows up in news and media. Neuroanatomy, neurotransmitters, and so forth. Again it starts from the basics which is very helpful.

This accounts for maybe half of the book and provides the foundation for all neuroscience. Then some more specific topics are covered that make use of that knowledge, such as neural development, neuroplasticity, and sense perception. The latter was covered fairly in-depth, which is very typical for the field of neuroscience but I always dislike it and found it boring.

Towards the end, it tries to connect it broader topics that are in the realm of psychology, such as language, memory, dreams, emotion and consciousness. It also had a chapter on pharmacology, which included medicine, poison and psychoactive drugs. Anywhere from caffeine, LSD and cocaine. And it was super interesting to me. Through these examples, it gave a good explanation of organic chemistry for neuroscience purposes. Sometimes it went too in-depth and I had no idea what was going on, but again as a recurrent theme, it was enough to get the overall picture. Understanding how many drugs work at a more basic biological level was pretty cool.

What I liked the most was the book seemed pretty holistic and tried to connect many dots for a broad understanding of the field. For instance, I was taken aback by reading how the historical background of quantum mechanics influenced molecular biology, which I had no idea.

More specifically about the field, something fascinating is how much ingenuity there is in neuroscience and how it has developed over time. As a random example, before 1920 chemical neurotransmission wasn't known/proved.

This changed by an experiment with Otto Loewi, inspired by a dream no less, made at 3 AM. He was doing experiments in neural regulation using a frog heart, which still has a heartbeat despite being outside the organism with the appropriate substrate.

The heart rate is regulated by the brain, and it can be slowed by stimulating the vagus nerve. In his new experiment, he slowed the heartbeat by electrically stimulating the vagus nerve, but then collected the fluid around it and poured into another container with a separate frog heart. This second heart also started beating slower, despite no electrical stimulation of the nerve! Therefore, he proved that somehow something in the liquid (a chemical substance) communicated to the heart to slow down.

I found this experiment very witty and there are other examples. It's crazy how complex the field is and how much knowledge we have gained, and it's even more mindblowing by seeing how such a vast network of knowledge is built slowly, by one clever experiment at the time.

What I disliked the least was that sometimes the writing shifted very quickly in difficulty. You may be easily cruising with everyday language, and then a couple of paragraphs later you can barely keep out with all the acronyms and what the hell they mean. This is a problem in neuroscience in general. If you try to make it easy, you oversimplify and the knowledge is superficial. If you try to be more in-depth, then it gets very hard to understand. The author tried to find a balance, but sometimes it felt as if he simply used both extremes rather than trying to find a middle ground. However this is a flaw that I think is incredibly hard to solve, and perhaps this is already close to the best one can do.

Overall it's a fantastic source for those that want to learn about neuroscience. It's readable and not as tedious as a massive neuroscience textbook. However, don't be fooled into thinking it's a normal non-fiction science book you typically pick off the shelf in your book store. There is still a fair bit of chemistry, biology, etc. And some parts are still quite technical. You can think of it as an in-between level of an introduction and a textbook. That is exactly what I was looking for and it delivered what I wanted.

Lastly, I was impressed by the quality of the book itself. It is very high quality with a good hardcover, the design is very aesthetic, and the size of the pages and writing was perfect.

[buyuk.dev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intersting reading, low information density.

I liked reading this book, although it took me a long time to push through it, because most chapters were extremely long in relation to the concepts they described.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable :)

[Jill Sompel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skimmed this book for school. Presti is an incredible teacher and writer. Truly enjoyed all of his presentations.

[Dylan Coyne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helpful overview of neuroscience. It was a good foundational read for a clinician.

[Melanie Mann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I am too dumb for this book but if I understood what the hell was going on I’m sure it would be enlightening.

[Callie Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a massive neuroscience nerd. As with anything so extensive and convoluted though, at times it can be tedious, yet Presti kept me engaged 100% of the time.5🌟

[Edgar Amezcua · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written

[Jimmy In]

This is not the most interesting book on neuroscience I have ever read, but it is a good introduction to the subject.

[Mills College Library]

612.8 P936 2016