Neuroscience

Citation

Augustine, G. J., Groh, J. M., Huettel, S. A., LaMantia, A.-S., & White, L. E. (2023). Neuroscience (7th ed.). Sinauer Associates; Oxford University Press.

Chapter Summary

The seventh edition has 33 chapters and about 1,000 pages. The publisher describes it as a balance of animal, human and clinical studies that runs from cellular signalling to cognitive function, with new learning objectives and more concise sections. The chapter list falls into natural groups, which this guide follows.

Chapters 1–4: Studying the Nervous System; Electrical Signals of Nerve Cells; Voltage-Dependent Membrane Permeability; Ion Channels and Transporters

The book opens with how the nervous system is studied, with companion animations on MRI and PET, and then builds the physiology of the single neuron: the resting membrane potential and electrochemical equilibrium, the action potential, the voltage clamp method, impulse conduction in axons, and the patch clamp method and sodium–potassium pump.

Chapters 5–8: Synaptic Transmission; Neurotransmitters and Their Receptors; Molecular Signaling within Neurons; Synaptic Plasticity

These chapters move from one neuron to communication between neurons: synaptic transmission and the summation of postsynaptic potentials, ionotropic and metabotropic receptors, the major transmitter systems (the companion animations follow acetylcholine, glutamate, dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin pathways), second-messenger signalling including calcium, and synaptic plasticity, with animations on sensitization in Aplysia and on AMPA and NMDA receptors.

Chapters 9–15: Vision; Hearing; The Vestibular System; Touch and Proprioception; Pain and Temperature; Olfaction; Taste

Each sense receives its own chapter. Companion animations cover the anatomy of the eye, phototransduction, retinal processing and visual pathways, the ear, the vestibular system and the olfactory system.

Chapters 16–21: Lower Motor Neuron Circuits and Motor Control; Upper Motor Neuron Control of the Brainstem and Spinal Cord; Modulation of Movement by the Basal Ganglia; Modulation of Movement by the Cerebellum; Eye Movements and Sensorimotor Integration; The Visceral Motor System

The motor half begins with spinal circuits (animations on the stretch and flexion reflexes) and ascends through brainstem and cortical control, the basal ganglia and the cerebellum, to eye movements and the autonomic nervous system.

Chapters 22–26: Early Brain Development; Construction of Neural Circuits; Experience-Dependent Plasticity in the Developing Brain; Sex Differences and Neural Circuit Development; Repair and Regeneration in the Nervous System

Development has five chapters, from early brain development and the growth cone and axonal pathfinding, through experience-dependent plasticity, to sex differences (with an animation on the aromatization hypothesis) and repair.

Chapters 27–33: Cognitive Functions and the Organization of the Cerebral Cortex; Cortical States; Attention; Memory; Speech and Language; Emotion; Thinking, Planning, and Deciding

The final chapters address higher functions. The cortex's organisation comes first, followed by cortical states (the companion material includes an animation of a molecular clock), attention, memory, speech and language, emotion, and thinking, planning and deciding.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–8: Cellular Signalling

• Resting membrane potential and electrochemical equilibrium: the voltage across a neuron's membrane and the ionic balance that sets it.
• Voltage clamp and patch clamp: recording methods that the chapters on membrane permeability and channels build on.
• Ionotropic and metabotropic receptors: transmitter receptors that are themselves ion channels, or that act through intracellular signalling.
• Synaptic plasticity: lasting changes in synaptic strength, tied here to AMPA and NMDA receptors.

Chapters 9–21: Sensory and Motor Systems

• Phototransduction: conversion of light to an electrical signal in the retina.
• Reflex circuits: the stretch and flexion reflexes that anchor the motor chapters.
• Basal ganglia and cerebellum: two structures that modulate movement, each in its own chapter.

Chapters 22–33: Development and Higher Function

• Axonal pathfinding: the way growth cones find their targets.
• Experience-dependent plasticity: how early experience shapes developing circuits.
• Attention, memory, language, emotion, decision making: the cognitive topics of the last seven chapters.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A balanced evidence base. The publisher says the book balances animal, human and clinical studies throughout, and positions it as a bridge between undergraduate and medical school study of the nervous system.
• Complete coverage in a single text. The 33 chapters take in cellular signalling, each major sensory system in its own chapter, the motor system in six chapters, development in five and a closing group on cognition, so one book can serve a full neuroscience sequence.
• Substantial companion resources. Student resources include animations, flashcards, interactive figures, web topics and study questions, and Sylvius 4 Online, a web-based environment for exploring the structure of the human central nervous system. The seventh edition is delivered through the Oxford Insight platform.
• Edition changes aimed at readability. The publisher describes new learning objectives and more concise sections in this edition.

Limitations

• Length. At roughly 1,000 pages the book exceeds what a single course can cover, so instructors and students need to choose chapters.
• Cognition comes last. The seven chapters on cognitive functions follow about twenty-six chapters of cellular, sensory, motor and developmental material, so a course that wants cognitive neuroscience early has to reorder the book.
• Computation and methods have no chapter of their own. The chapter list shows no separate chapter on quantitative modelling, and techniques are introduced where they arise, beginning with a first chapter on studying the nervous system.
• Online resources sit on a separate platform. The publisher states that the instructor and student resources for the seventh edition are included in the Oxford Insight courseware, not with the printed text alone.

Where It Fits in the Course

Augustine and colleagues provide the broadest single reference among the neuroscience books on this site. It is the natural choice for a full two-semester sequence that wants cellular neuroscience, every sensory and motor system, development and cognition from one author team. It is a more comprehensive treatment than Casey Henley's free Foundations of Neuroscience and Bear, Connors and Paradiso's Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain, both written as introductions, and it can serve as the main text after one of them.

Compared with Liqun Luo's Principles of Neurobiology, which is built around key experiments and has no chapters on attention, language or decision making, it is wider and more clinical. Martin and colleagues' From Neuron to Brain covers cellular and systems neuroscience through key experiments, and Dayan and Abbott's Theoretical Neuroscience is the graduate-level text for quantitative models. For clinical neuroanatomy, texts such as Snell's Clinical Neuroanatomy and Hal Blumenfeld's Neuroanatomy through Clinical Cases are better matched.

How to Use This Book

The book assumes a first course in biology and some familiarity with cell biology and basic chemistry. It suits second- and third-year neuroscience, biology and psychology students and early medical students.

A practical plan for a one-semester course:

• Core: Chapters 1–8 for cellular and synaptic physiology, then Chapter 9 on vision as a worked example of a sensory system and Chapters 16–17 for motor control.
• Choose by interest: the remaining senses (Chapters 10–15), the basal ganglia and cerebellum (Chapters 18–19), development (Chapters 22–26) and the cognitive chapters (27–33). A two-semester course can take the book in order.
• Use the learning objectives and animations: work through the companion animations while reading the physiology chapters, and use the web-based Sylvius 4 tool when the anatomy is difficult to picture.

Read the cellular chapters before the cognitive ones, since later chapters rely on membrane physiology and synaptic mechanisms, and use the study questions in the student resources to check understanding.