Many people like Kandel (the book not the guy, whom I assume many people also like). I had a two-semester survey course out of it in grad school. My neuroanatomy prof didn't use Carpenter -- she felt the level of detail was unnecessary -- although I wish she had. The writing is oddly compelling for what is, let's face it, a dictionary of brain parts. However, Principles left me cold. We could look into why that is and what it says about me, or we could move on with life and check out what does get my fur puffy.
Which brings us to Fundamental Neuroscience.
Haines doesn't have the breadth of Kandel nor the depth of Carpenter, but what it does it does very well. It's a forest-not-the-trees sort of textbook. It gives you a sense of the big picture. The middle ground. Carpenter shows you every leaf of every tree. Kandel discusses trees, the biology of trees, the economics of trees, the life cycle of trees, the habitat of woodland creatures, tree symbolism in religion and literature, challenges facing the lumber industry, log cabins, the environmental impact of woodpulping, the history of paper making, binary trees, tree diagrams, tree forts, tree houses, trees of North America, and how to construct a rudimentary lathe.
In contrast, Haines leaves you with a sense of how it all fits together. For my money, this is the most difficult concept to grok when studying the brain.
That's not to say the text skimps on details. My edition weighs in at almost 500 pages (albeit less than half of Kandel's girth). The chapters are the standard neurobuffet, starting with cellular components and signaling, then taking a brief look at development, meninges, and vasculature before moving into anatomy, and finally systematically revisiting the anatomy from a systems perspective. There's glossy photos of gross and histology and MRI, complimented by line drawings and color schematics clarifying the various areas and nuclei. Throughout, there is a focus on connectivity -- what is often called "arrow anatomy" -- the presentation emphasizing and revisiting connections within and among the major systems. The chapters were submitted by a stable of contributors (the stable skewed toward Haines' colleagues at UMiss, but no matter). The writing is clear and cogent, and Haines' editing has crafted the parts into a coherent whole.
The current edition carries the label ...for basic and clinical applications (my 1997 edition does not) which I think does the book a disservice. It gives an impression that the material gets short shrift, a laser concentration on the clinic glossing over things, much like the sundry Correlational Neuroanatomy titles may well be essential reading for those needing to connect symptoms to insult, but otherwise are no thorough presentation. A crash course for getting past the MCAT or the USMLE or whatever Princeton Review dog and pony show aspiring medicos have to jump through these days.
Not true. Fundamental Neuroscience has become my go-to sourcebook and my interests are about as distal from clinical applications as can be. Haines provides a hawk-like view of the lay of the neuroscience land, an alternative to the hard slog of the two standard treatments. It's a breath of fresh air, a second wind. A way of giving your brain and biceps a rest if your not up for memorizing all 47 different divisions of the medial geniculate listed in Carpenter or pushing through all 900 chapters in Kandel.
Check out Fundamental Neuroscience on Amazon
No comments:
Post a Comment