Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain

Citation

Bear, M. F., Connors, B. W., & Paradiso, M. A. (2025). Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain (5th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Chapter Summary

The fifth edition (copyright 2026, released in 2025) has 25 chapters in four parts, an illustrated appendix of human neuroanatomy, a glossary, references and an index, about 975 pages of text in all. In the publisher's words, the book surveys the organisation and function of the human nervous system at a level comparable to an introductory college biology text, for science and nonscience students alike. The publisher's transition guide states that the order of chapters and their general topics are unchanged from the fourth edition. The new edition updates the content (gene editing, brain stimulation, microscopy, functional imaging, connectomics, stem cells and computational modelling), adds learning objectives to every chapter and introduces "Neuroscience and Medicine" boxes.

Part One, Foundations — Chapter 1: Neuroscience: Past, Present, and Future

The opening chapter traces ideas about the brain from ancient Greece and the Roman Empire through the Renaissance to the nineteenth century, when nerves came to be seen as wires and functions were localised to brain regions. It introduces the evolution of nervous systems and the neuron as the basic unit. It then describes neuroscience today: levels of analysis from molecular to cognitive, the scientific process, the use of animals in research, and the cost of nervous system disorders.

Part One, Foundations — Chapters 2–7: Neurons and Glia; The Neuronal Membrane at Rest; The Action Potential; Synaptic Transmission; Neurotransmitter Systems; The Structure of the Nervous System

Chapter 2 starts from the neuron doctrine, the Golgi stain and Cajal, then describes the parts of a prototypical neuron, the ways neurons are classified (by structure, physiology and gene expression) and the types of glia. Chapter 3 explains the chemicals and proteins that set up the resting membrane potential. Chapters 4–6 cover the action potential (including refractory periods and the actions of local anaesthetics and neurotoxins), synaptic transmission and short-term plasticity, and the neurotransmitter systems. Chapter 7 describes the gross organisation of the nervous system; the publisher lists the glymphatic system, chronic traumatic encephalopathy and connectomics among its updated topics. The appendix that follows is an illustrated guide to human neuroanatomy.

Part Two, Sensory and Motor Systems — Chapters 8–14: The Chemical Senses: Taste and Smell; The Eye; The Central Visual System; The Auditory and Vestibular Systems: Hearing and Balancing; The Somatic Sensory System: Touch, Pain, and Itch; Muscles and the Spinal Control of Movement; Brain Control of Movement

Part Two takes each sensory system in turn and then the motor system. Topics named by the publisher include molecular taste transduction and labelled-line versus population coding (Chapter 8); colour-vision abnormalities and receptive fields (Chapter 9); thalamic nuclei and parallel processing streams in primary visual cortex (Chapter 10); hair-cell transduction, the cochlear amplifier, cochlear implants and sound localisation (Chapter 11); mechanosensitive channels and the channels behind pain, temperature and itch (Chapter 12); spinal reflex circuits, proprioception and disorders such as ALS (Chapter 13); and the motor cortex together with Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases (Chapter 14).

Part Three, The Brain and Behavior — Chapters 15–22: Chemical Control of the Brain and Behavior; Motivation; Sex and the Brain; Brain Mechanisms of Emotion; Sleep, Circadian Clocks, and Brain Rhythms; Language; The Resting Brain, Attention, and Consciousness; Mental Illness

Part Three explores the neurobiology of behaviour. It covers diffuse chemical control of the brain, motivation, including appetite and social motivation, and sex and gender differences in the brain. It then turns to emotion and interoception, and to sleep and circadian rhythms with the methods of human neural recording. The remaining chapters treat language and aphasia, the default mode network, attention and theories of consciousness, and mental illness and its treatments.

Part Four, The Changing Brain — Chapters 23–25: Wiring the Brain; Memory Systems; Molecular Mechanisms of Learning and Memory

The last part looks at how experience modifies the brain. Chapter 23 covers development of connections, including axon guidance and plasticity. Chapter 24 covers working memory, spatial memory and the hippocampal system, and the role of sleep in consolidation. Chapter 25 treats synaptic plasticity at the molecular level, including homeostatic plasticity and synaptic tagging and capture.

Key Concepts

Part One: Foundations (Chapters 1–7)

• Neuron doctrine: the nervous system is made of discrete cells, the neurons, the view established through the work of Golgi and Cajal.
• Resting membrane potential and action potential: the electrical state of a neuron at rest, and the all-or-none impulse that carries signals along the axon.
• Synaptic transmission: chemical communication between neurons, which can be modified over short time scales.
• Levels of analysis: molecular, cellular, systems, behavioural and cognitive neuroscience.

Part Two: Sensory and Motor Systems (Chapters 8–14)

• Sensory transduction: conversion of chemical, light, sound and mechanical stimuli into neural signals.
• Receptive fields and parallel processing: how visual neurons respond to parts of a scene, and how processing streams separate and combine.
• Spinal reflexes and motor cortex: the spinal circuits and brain structures that organise movement.

Part Three: The Brain and Behavior (Chapters 15–22)

• Diffuse modulatory systems: chemical control of brain state and behaviour.
• Circadian rhythms and sleep: internal clocks and the brain circuits that regulate sleep.
• Default mode and attention networks: large-scale brain networks active at rest and during attention.

Part Four: The Changing Brain (Chapters 23–25)

• Activity-dependent wiring: how connections are refined during development.
• Memory systems: working, spatial and long-term memory and their brain structures.
• Synaptic plasticity: lasting changes in synaptic strength that underlie learning.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Accessible to beginners. The publisher states that the material is presented at the level of an introductory college biology text and written for nonscience as well as science students. The prerequisites are correspondingly modest.
• A logical four-part arc. The book moves from neurons, through sensory and motor systems and behaviour, to the changing brain. The parts can be taught in sequence or selected for shorter courses.
• Broad coverage of behaviour. Part Three gives full chapters to motivation, sex and the brain, emotion, sleep, language, consciousness and mental illness. These topics matter to psychology students and are often treated briefly in cellular texts.
• Pedagogical support. "Path of Discovery" boxes are written by leading researchers, among them Nobel laureates. Other boxes cover medical relevance and deeper detail. Learning objectives, review questions and a glossary are included, and an illustrated neuroanatomy appendix accompanies Part One.
• An updated edition. The 2025 revision adds material on gene editing, connectomics, brain stimulation and other recent methods, as well as topics such as long COVID and the brain.

Limitations

• Very long for a first course. At nearly a thousand pages, the book is more than a one-semester course can cover; most courses will need to choose chapters.
• Structure inherited from the fourth edition. Because the chapter order is unchanged, newer areas such as computational modelling and connectomics are added inside existing chapters rather than given chapters of their own.
• Light on quantitative treatment. The publisher's level statement implies that biophysics and modelling are presented descriptively. Students heading for computational or theoretical work will need a more mathematical text.

Where It Fits in the Course

Among the neuroscience books on this list, this is a full-length introductory textbook suited to a first course for biology and psychology students. Casey Henley's Foundations of Neuroscience is a free, openly licensed introduction covering similar foundations in shorter sections. It can serve as a lighter alternative or as a companion for students who want a second explanation. Purves's Neuroscience and Liqun Luo's Principles of Neurobiology cover the same range at greater depth: Purves is comprehensive, with clinical evidence, while Luo is built around the experiments behind each principle. Either is a natural next step. From Neuron to Brain builds its account of cellular and systems neuroscience from key experiments. Dayan and Abbott's Theoretical Neuroscience is a graduate text on mathematical modelling.

For anatomy and clinical context, the neuroanatomy books on the list (Crossman's Neuroanatomy: Illustrated Colour Text, Barker and colleagues' Neuroanatomy and Neuroscience at a Glance, Blumenfeld's Neuroanatomy through Clinical Cases and Snell's Clinical Neuroanatomy) complement Bear's Chapter 7 and its illustrated appendix. Nestler's Molecular Neuropharmacology and Cooper, Bloom and Roth's The Biochemical Basis of Neuropharmacology extend Chapters 6, 15 and 22.

How to Use This Book

No previous neuroscience is needed. School biology and chemistry are enough to start, and the third chapter provides the chemistry needed for membrane potentials.

• Core for any course: Chapters 1–7 and the neuroanatomy appendix. Work through Chapters 3–5 slowly, since the membrane potential, action potential and synaptic transmission underpin everything else.
• Sensory and motor systems: in a biology-oriented course, read Chapters 8–14 in full. In a shorter course, choose one sensory system (the visual chapters, 9–10, are the most extensive) plus Chapters 13–14 on movement.
• Behaviour: psychology and cognitive science students can choose freely from Chapters 15–22 after the foundations.
• Learning and memory: Chapters 23–25 make a coherent final unit and draw on Chapter 5.
• Study method: use the learning objectives at the start of each chapter as a checklist, and answer the review questions at the end. Read the boxes as optional enrichment.

A two-semester sequence can cover the whole book. One semester is best spent on Parts One and Two, or on Part One plus selected chapters from Parts Three and Four.