From Neuron to Brain

When Stephen Kuffler and John Nicholls wrote the first edition of FROM NEURON TO BRAIN, published in 1976, it was a landmark text that belonged on the shelf of every neurophysiologist. It was a great piece of work - readable, elegant and relatively compact. The current edition, the 5th, is, alas, completely re-written and is a greatly expanded and far less impressive text than the first edition. Rather than concentrating most of its pages on basic neurophysiology, the 5th edition attempts to be a more general neuroscience text, covering considerably more pharmacology, systems neuroscience and behavior than the original.The inclusion of the latter is not bad, but in this edition, that lists 6 authors on the cover, I think it it is a case of "Too many cooks spoil the broth." The organization of the chapters, particularly in the first half of the book is all over the place. Not only that, within single chapters there are far too many references, both forward and backward, to explanations in other chapters in the book. In various places, there is either too much or too little detail. Some of the figure legends will be next to impossible for anyone other than an experienced neuroscientist to understand (e.g., Fig. 14.6). One gets the feeling that there was no one person who's job it was to read the entire book in sequence and smooth out the irregularities and contiguity problems. In general, the text has been simplified compared to the Kuffler and Nicholls original, and I cannot imagine actually following the sequence of chapters as presently organized in either a graduate or undergraduate general neuroscience course or a neurophysiology courseWhereas I use earlier editions as core readings for an advanced graduate level course called "Cellular Neurophysiology", there is nothing in this current edition that is worth assigning instead of the chapters in the earlier editions. The book still contains a wealth of excellent information on neuroscience, but I am not sure what the target audience is. It does not contain enough specifics for a graduate level neurophysiology course. For that I would refer the reader to FOUNDATIONS OF CELLULAR NEUROPHYSIOLOGY by Johnston and Wu, and/or THE SYNAPTIC ORGANIZATION OF THE BRAIN by Shepherd and/or IONIC CHANNELS OF EXCITABLE MEMBRANES by Hille. Each of these texts differs greatly in style, but each gives the reader much more detailed information.J.M. Tepperps (11/13/14) I edited the review today, after using the text for the first semester of our year-long Foundations course required of all first year students. I added some more specific complaints and reduced my rating from 3 stars to 2 stars.

This book is much more detailed than any of my courses have been so far as an undergrad. However, I bought this book rather than buying a pdf/ebook because I heard great things about it. I reference it whenever I can because of how in depth it explains it. I read the book and felt like I understood the material more than my peers in my classes because of how it explained the topics. It is one of the best neuroscience books I have come across.

I think that this is a good textbook for introductory neuroscience. There are a few figures/concepts that could be better explained, but it is a far better text than the one I was assigned for my current studies.

The book came in protected wrapping and it was evident that it had never been used. Thank you. My preference is that with a new course of study should came a new book. The shipping container looked like a gorilla jumped on it and threw it all over the place, but the book was in excellent condition. I will start using the book this week. Carol J Montgomery-Taylor

I bought a used version of this one, cuz the original price was way too expensive and received a copy that almost resembles a new copy.

This textbook does a pretty good job of explaining the material. The only downside is the strong focus on experimental data (this may be a plus or a minus depending on how you learn best!)

This was required reading for my Physiological Psychology course. It provides good information, but is rather hard to read and goes very far in depth for an intro to neuro course.

This is a very good book, it contains almost everything and in nutshell... tones of illustrations, graphs, pictures... answers and questions... a must have book for those who are interested in this area !!!

This book continues to inspire students interested in all areas of neurobiology and neuroscience with the almost unique combination of beautiful illustrations and explanations of original experiments and clear uncluttered text.

An incredibly useful textbook. I've lost track of the number of times I couldn't find a decent explanation of a concept on the internet but found the perfect one in here - with diagrams!. Invaluable for my undergrad. Also smells like coffee, which I really like.

I required a book on Neuroscience that would be informative and up to date. It is both and is probably the best book I have read on Neuroscience because it deals with the Brain at a cellular and molecular level; the illustrations and graphics are well laid out with concise explanations. Also, each chapter is summarised which aids learning.

Excellent arrived quickly

In good conditions, perfect