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Tiago F's Reviews > Neuroanatomy and Neuroscience at a Glance
Neuroanatomy and Neuroscience at a Glance
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by
Neuroscience is a difficult field and it is very visual. I've been struggling to learn it so finding a book "Neuroscience at a Glance" seemed a good resource.
The organization of the book is superb. It is organized by themed parts which generally follow up on each other and they go from the micro to the macro in terms of the level of analysis in the brain. There are 8 parts in total, covering everything from anatomy, sensory systems, cognition, etc.
Within each chapter, there are several subchapters that deal with a particular subject. For example in the chapter on cells and neurophysiology, there is a subchapter on ion channels. These subchapters are always only 2 pages long. On the left page you have a big diagram, usually including most if not the entire page. And on the right page you have text which explains that subchapter.
This two-page organization makes it very intuitive and significantly less intimidating than most neuroscience textbooks. It scales it down a size that seems manageable.
Despite the organization and big graphics, it wasn't as useful as I initially thought. Some were pretty complex, and I found that it often added little to the text. And while the text supposedly builds on the graph, sometimes they didn't feel that connection.
For instance, I would have expected different parts of the graph to be referenced in the text. However, that never happened. Therefore if there is a gigantic graphic of a synapse where there are 20 different things happening, it would have been helpful if these are broken down into different visual sections and explained by text.
However, I understand that would be difficult to do and make the book longer. I think in part some aspects of neuroscience just don't translate well for book learning. While I said that neuroscience is very visual and a graphic book like this helps, I think how neuroscience truly shines is what animation, where the graphic can be broken down temporally, and each "micro-event" can be covered in isolation, slowly building one on top of the other. Obviously, such animation is impossible in a book so it's not something I can expect.
The text itself was generally good and I was surprised by my general lack of boredom despite the topic. They are typically divided into several sections, each being quite small with only a few paragraphs.
The only part I truly disliked was the sensory systems, which I ended up skipping. The best parts I think are the very beginning and the very end.
The beginning gives you the foundations of neuroscience which you need regardless of what topic you're interested in. For instance, you need to understand what an action potential is, or how neurotransmitters work.
But such knowledge is very theoretical. The latter parts of the book get a more macro perspective, dealing more with cognition and applied neurobiology. My favourite part was when concrete disorders were covered, either neurological like epilepsy, or neuropsychiatric like schizophrenia.
It is a fairly medical book and part of the reason why it wasn't as useful as I thought. In fact, I believe the audience for it is medical students. Nevertheless studying the brain has the same foundations regardless of the angle taken.
Overall it's a solid resource, although a bit disappointing at least for my end. Perhaps the most problematic aspect I found is that sometimes it didn't care to give background to specific terms or concepts. It just assumes you know what they are talking about, and many times I didn't. The book is more of a resource for revision than actual learning.
I was just casually reading the book and trying to get the overall picture, so this often wasn't a deal-breaker. But for example, if you're trying to actually know these topics in-depth you will have to constantly refer to other books or the internet to understand what specific content was mentioned.
If you're hoping that having more graphs will finally make neuroscience easy, then you're wrong and don't bother with the book. But if you just want an extra way to try to understand the brain a little better, it might be worth it. I think the fact that it's so well organized might be a good incentive for someone who is very intimidated by it. Just make sure you have at least some background dealing with the brain beforehand though.
The organization of the book is superb. It is organized by themed parts which generally follow up on each other and they go from the micro to the macro in terms of the level of analysis in the brain. There are 8 parts in total, covering everything from anatomy, sensory systems, cognition, etc.
Within each chapter, there are several subchapters that deal with a particular subject. For example in the chapter on cells and neurophysiology, there is a subchapter on ion channels. These subchapters are always only 2 pages long. On the left page you have a big diagram, usually including most if not the entire page. And on the right page you have text which explains that subchapter.
This two-page organization makes it very intuitive and significantly less intimidating than most neuroscience textbooks. It scales it down a size that seems manageable.
Despite the organization and big graphics, it wasn't as useful as I initially thought. Some were pretty complex, and I found that it often added little to the text. And while the text supposedly builds on the graph, sometimes they didn't feel that connection.
For instance, I would have expected different parts of the graph to be referenced in the text. However, that never happened. Therefore if there is a gigantic graphic of a synapse where there are 20 different things happening, it would have been helpful if these are broken down into different visual sections and explained by text.
However, I understand that would be difficult to do and make the book longer. I think in part some aspects of neuroscience just don't translate well for book learning. While I said that neuroscience is very visual and a graphic book like this helps, I think how neuroscience truly shines is what animation, where the graphic can be broken down temporally, and each "micro-event" can be covered in isolation, slowly building one on top of the other. Obviously, such animation is impossible in a book so it's not something I can expect.
The text itself was generally good and I was surprised by my general lack of boredom despite the topic. They are typically divided into several sections, each being quite small with only a few paragraphs.
The only part I truly disliked was the sensory systems, which I ended up skipping. The best parts I think are the very beginning and the very end.
The beginning gives you the foundations of neuroscience which you need regardless of what topic you're interested in. For instance, you need to understand what an action potential is, or how neurotransmitters work.
But such knowledge is very theoretical. The latter parts of the book get a more macro perspective, dealing more with cognition and applied neurobiology. My favourite part was when concrete disorders were covered, either neurological like epilepsy, or neuropsychiatric like schizophrenia.
It is a fairly medical book and part of the reason why it wasn't as useful as I thought. In fact, I believe the audience for it is medical students. Nevertheless studying the brain has the same foundations regardless of the angle taken.
Overall it's a solid resource, although a bit disappointing at least for my end. Perhaps the most problematic aspect I found is that sometimes it didn't care to give background to specific terms or concepts. It just assumes you know what they are talking about, and many times I didn't. The book is more of a resource for revision than actual learning.
I was just casually reading the book and trying to get the overall picture, so this often wasn't a deal-breaker. But for example, if you're trying to actually know these topics in-depth you will have to constantly refer to other books or the internet to understand what specific content was mentioned.
If you're hoping that having more graphs will finally make neuroscience easy, then you're wrong and don't bother with the book. But if you just want an extra way to try to understand the brain a little better, it might be worth it. I think the fact that it's so well organized might be a good incentive for someone who is very intimidated by it. Just make sure you have at least some background dealing with the brain beforehand though.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
November, 2021
–
Finished Reading
November 8, 2021
– Shelved
