Discovering the Brain

摘要

This book arose out of a July 1990 symposium organized by the Institute ofMedicine to initiate the Decade of the Brain. Scientists reviewed the state of their knowledge in the presence of policymakers, covering topics that ranged from the molecular events underlying transmission of nerve impulses to the biology of perception and consciousness. The author distilled themes from the symposium into the book, which introduces neuroscience to those who may be approaching it for the first time. It serves as an overview of neuroscience in the early 1990s. Contents: The Promise of Neuroscience; Major Structures and Functions of the Brain; Glimpses of the Living Brain; The Role of the Brain in Mental Illness; From Chemistry to Circuitry; The Development and Shaping of the Brain; From Perception to Attention; Learning, Recalling, and Thinking; and Sizing Up the Promise.