Cambridge Textbook of Neuroscience for Psychiatrists

Very good guide to a complex area

It is over 60 years since I was taught neuroanatomy and at the time the 'How' of the inner workings of the NS were sparse. I thought I should "update" myself! I found the book easy to follow and from my point of view instructive. However the change in insight and knowledge in the intervening time is staggering.I am glad I got round to this update!

This excellent book is a guide to the current state of neuroscience for clinicians - particularly psychiatrists, but would also be of considerable relevance to neuroscientists more generally (for example undergraduate studies) and psychologists. It is written by eminent leaders in the field and provides a clear approach to neuroscience that engages the reader, neither being overcomplicated or blind to the areas still be explored or explained (which are clearly articulated). The book starts with chapters on the building blocks of neuroscience (to some extent as you would expect, though with a degree of clarity not often found) such as genetics, neural circuits, neuroanatomy etc. It then gives an overview of the methods to used to develop our understanding of neuroscience. The highlight of the book (for me) though, and where it exceeds other neuroscience primers, is the second half of the book that integrates neurobiology with specific psychiatric syndromes (not just diagnoses, but behaviours, symptom clusters and treatments) so that a clinician can develop an understanding of how a patient might present with particularly difficulties and the underlying neurobiology that relates to it. This might sound like a very "biological" basis for psychiatry, and clearly a book on neuroscience will tend that way. It is another strength of this book however that it integrates with psychological and social approaches, for example with chapters on Attachment, and recognition of the role of psychological mechanisms in (eg) medically unexplained symptoms. Overall this is an impressive book and one I would thoroughly recommend to the target audience.

In depth and another example of how much there is to learn about the mind.

I find myself extremely annoyed that I had to go through the chapters to add page numbers to the table of contents. They chose to include authors’ names rather than page numbers despite each chapter’s authors being redundantly listed elsewhere in the book. This feels kind of icky to me and a waste of time for someone using this as a study resource.