3rd Edition, Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain

A very good book with excellent illustrations, and particularly suitable as an introductory text for undergraduate students in neuroscience. For post-doctoral researchers may not be sufficient and should lead to other books.

I purchased this book after perusing a friends second edition copy for which she paid about $110.00 dollars. I paid less than half that price for a third edition copy in mint condition and the price included shipping and handling. Me so happy! :-)

I am using this textbook in my neurobiology book and its very helpful. It is well written and they use examples that help you to connect to the topic. The Cd-Rom that comes with it is very helpful for learning neuroanatomy.

I rented this textbook for my clinical neuro class. It's really easy to read, one of the best science textbooks I have read. It's not boring or dull at all. It's so easy to understand. I'm so glad I brought this.

This is a wonderful text for students, new an old to the field. Historical points of interest include a real feel for the process of discoveries made in neurosciences and since many advances are recent, the book takes the novel approach of having "boxed" information often written by the original scientists themselves! A bit like having a course with guest lecturer's from around the world! Easy to read, a well worth the money.

The item is in almost perfect condition, almost no sign of use so i was really happy when i received the book since i will most likely keep the book for future reference. The shipment was really fast, too! Overall, I will definitely do business with the seller again and will recommend the seller to others!

This book is awful. The authors sound like they are trying to sound scholarly by using "impressive" vocabulary, but the words actually don't fit into the sentences at all and just serve to confuse the reader. The material sounds all jumbled as if the author just threw whatever was on his mind into the text. Using this book for an introductory neuroscience class has only made me hate the subject (that I thought I would enjoy) and come out of the class knowing less than when I started the class.

I'm not sure how this book got such high ratings. I hope our professor changes the book for the coming semesters.

A well-written guide-book with high quality figures, my major is material science with almost no understanding of the neuroscience, and I still felt comfortable with this book. The only gap between you and this book can be easily fulfilled with the aid of Wikipedia or Baidu (for our Chinese). I get the book "principle of neural science" firstly, and the thickness really kills me (~2000 pages), makes me afraid of this area. I'm not telling you that book is bad since you can take it as a perfect cyclopedia during the day and pillow at night, but this one " neuroscicence exploring the brain" makes me feel better. If you are new to this area, I really suggest you to begin from this one.

This is a wonderful textbook, and like only a very few others I have read, is well written and interesting enough to be read as an excellent book. It is quite difficult to put down and I think most readers will find themselves reading more than is required for their class or reading it for pleasure alone. It is not a complete exhaustive reference on every topic in neuroscience, but it does not pretend to be (and I think it would lose some of its appeal to the intended audience if it did). For example, the brief mention of glial cells in chapter 2 was a little disappointing, then again, I have a textbook of close to a thousand pages on glial cells alone, but I think a little more coverage could have been given. But, there are additional resources given, which allows interested students to further explore concepts they have been introduced to in this text.

There is something to be said for a text that can be read cover to cover, with little strain, and give the reader a clear overview of the field.

I had already read the Italian version of this book during my 3rd year of bachelor in Psychology, and I was immediately fascinated by it. I have to say, the original version is definitely better. This book will give you a great overview on the topic, beginning with the very basics (a little chemistry and biology) to finish with some of the most complex questions that humankind has had to face - such as "Why do we dream?" or "Why do we crave carbohydrates when we are feeling depressed?".
Furthermore, the authors do a great job making all of this sound easy and definitely accessible to anyone. You will certainly find yourself eagerly reading more and more.

The book does a wonderful job introducing concepts. It is sure to get students interested in neuroscience. This is the type of book that would appeal to someone who is NOT fluent in the literature. This book is not appropriate for graduate level study.

Despite the excessive explanations (such as where certain terms come from), the book does a poor job explaining the concepts. It is also fairly unprofessional (lists including random examples that don't fit the context of the list) and biased (being condescending to anyone who disagrees with animal testing in neuroscience). Also, many figures are not on the same page as the reference to the figure, so you have to keep flipping to the next page or the previous page to see what it's referring to.

This book is really good for a general understanding of neuroscience and it has good pictures. This is really a beginning undergraduate level book and can be used as supplemental material for basic concepts when a student is starting to become more advanced, but it does not go into much detail. It is well-written and consequently easy to read. If you're looking for an introduction to neuroscience this is a good book. If you're looking for a reference book for higher level neuroscience this book won't meet standards.

This book has had praise heaped upon it by previous reviewers. I'd like to put that in perspective. As an undergraduate text or a general encyclopedic reference for the unitiated, this book is reasonably comprehensive and contains substantial high-quality illustrations. However as a reference for more advanced students, there is insufficient detail to motivate serious discussion. I find "Principles of Neural Science" by Kandel, Schwartz, and Jessell far more useful despite being a year older than Bear, et al. If the goal is to lift artwork for a pleasingly graphical PowerPoint presentation, this book is a fantastic resource, but if you want more than jargon and an introduction to the topic (albeit comprehensive), I'd look elsewhere.

You're probably purchasing this book because it's required for your survey course in neuroscience, and that's fine. In fact, it's pretty good for that purpose. But if you want a more rigorous treatment of the subject matter, then this book needs one or several serious supplements.

It's certainly the most "lickable" neuroscience textbook out there, due to its candy-coated drawings.

Pros:

-Current information

-Readability

-Clinical focus

-Profiling relevant human diseases (however largely non-rigorous)

-Profiling current scientists

-Presentation of some of the diagrams (colorful, do a fair job at synthesizing information)

It is not so good at:

-Thoroughness

-More realistic images (stained sections, slice preparations, fMRI images)

The two cons are a deal-breaker for me, however. For instructors I would recommend this book highly at the undergraduate level and only with a caveat to the graduate level.