This is a Neuroscience News book review of Neurobehavioral Anatomy, Third Edition by Christopher M. Filley.
Lately, neuroscience anatomy books tend to focus on visually stunning images of the brain and colorful drawings of various nervous system components while sacrificing important textual information. Neurobehavioral Anatomy, Third Edition by Christopher M. Filley does not follow this trend.
This book is packed full of informative explanations of neurobehavioral related disorders, diseases and symptoms including areas such as memory disorders, apraxia, traumatic brain injuries, temporal lobe syndromes, dementia, amusia and a plethera of others.
The images and drawings contained in the book are well explained in the text and don’t appear to be used simply to satisfy the reader’s need for visual stimuli (pretty pictures) as many neuroscience anatomy books seem to do these days. There are plenty of images and drawings to support the information presented in text, and references are listed for those desiring more. The informative, precise text is what makes this a great book.
As stated on the back cover, the author, Dr. Christopher M. Filley, is a professor of neurology and psychiatry as well as Director of the Behavioral Neurology Section at the Univerisity of Colorado School of Medicine. Dr. Filley is also Neurology Service Chief at the Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center and has been on the Best Doctors of America list since 1996.
The book gives a brief introduction to the mind-brain problem (dualism vs monism), general brain structures, behavioral neurology and neuroscience, but doesn’t linger on them. The more thoroughly explained information involves clinically based accounts of the brain and behavior. Neurobehavioral tests are presented in many areas with suitable details to get a reader familiar with the more popular testing procedures in neurology.
The audience for this book will likely consist of neuroscience and neurology students, medical residents, neuroscientists, psychiatrists, clinical researchers involved with behavior and the brain as well as doctors. An additional bonus is the book can serve as a neurobehavioral anatomy textbook and quick reference that is light enough to carry around. At 250 pages, it is small enough to tote around in a backpack, or briefcase without taking up too much room. ( I used to walk to university (minus the snow) with my most used books hanging from my shoulder, so this would have been extremely important to me back in the day.) The book is loaded with neuroscience and medical terms, but an extensive glossary and numerous references are more than enough to allow most people to keep up with the information without a medical dictionary on the side.
I consider myself a voracious reader of neuroscience related books, but I learned quite a bit from this book. New to my brain include the information regarding dressing apraxia, expressive and receptive amusia, and agraphesthesia. I won’t spoil the information presented in the book, but I did appreciate the way these were addressed by the author.
Behavior and brain anatomy basics are well explained to get a reader ready for the heavier material in later chapters. The well referenced reasoning explained to tie certain neurobehavioral symptoms to specific brain regions was presented well. Dr. Filley was careful not to stray too far off of specific topics, but does provide many references for readers interested in learning more about specific neurobehavioral issues not covered in depth in the book.
Many neurobehavioral topics are covered in the book with the most in-depth chapters covering mental status evaluations, temporal lobe syndromes and dementias. I wish more hyperreligiousity behaviors had been discussed in the temporal lobe syndrome chapter, though other symptoms of epilepsy and relevant brain areas were covered well. Every chapter in the book was very well referenced, extremely informative and adhered to the neurobehavioral anatomy theme promised by the title. The entire book flowed well from the introduction to the epilogue.
Neurobehavioral Anatomy, Third Edition meets our threshold for recommendation. Anyone needing a compact, well explained neurobehavioral anatomy book with just the right amount of illustrations will appreciate this book.
Recommendation Threshold Reached!
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Notes about this neuroscience book review
Neuroscience Book Reviewed: Neurobehavioral Anatomy, Third Edition
Book Author: Chistopher M. Filley
Book Provided to Neuroscience News by: Beth Svinarich of University Press of Colorado
Neuroscience Book Review by: Neuroscience News Admin @neurosciencenew
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