An Illustrated Guide to its Structure - and Disorders

I bought this book after reading " The Human Body." This book is helpful in understanding the function of the brain and the impact of disease on its function. I will use this in my work as a medical social worker. The book is written on a level that is easily understood and will be helpful to anyone interested in studying the brain.

Diane Wilson

This book has excellent pictures but it is baically useless for a medical student, so if you are a medical student looking for extensive detailed anatomy go somewhere else. In other words it's good to have on the shelf and good reading for the lay person, but it is deficient from a medical perspective. Nice picturs, full of trivia, it was a total mistake and waste of money. Oh well I should have been more careful.

A 'coffee table' quality book (with interactive DVD) on the human brain for under $30? Yes!

The book does a good job of describing (and illustrating) what is known regarding human neuroscience; it is much weaker describing what is not known. For example, the book does not describe the well-known gap between what is known about neuron function and what is known about how higher-level functions are performed (for example, visual pattern recognition). The book is overly enamored with the descriptive / explanatory power of electromagnetic brain imaging. Scientists who know nothing about modern microelectronics could develop equipment to correlate certain computational activity with certain electrical activity in an integrated circuit, but this doesn't mean that they understand on a fundamental level how the integrated circuit works. As another example, we don't understand how a common sparrow can fly through a forest and land on a branch using a brain only the size of pea. This is a feat of eye-wing-leg-claw coordination that we currently can't duplicate with an artificial control system. If we don't understand the 'simple' sparrow brain, you can bet we don't understand the 'complex' human brain.

The Human Brain Book by Rita Carter does a magnificent job of explaining the intricacies surrounding that great big hunk of grey matter that sits in each of our heads. This coffee-table book gives an in-depth look at everything that a person could want to know about the mysterious mass that controls everything about him or her.

The book itself is less of a "read through" book and more of a reference book that one could turn to if they were wondering about a certain facet of the brain; the helpful glossary and index make navigating this book quite easy, and finding what you want to learn about is a breeze.

My favorite part about this book is that it categorizes the complexity of every item in the book by the size of the font that it is in: the larger the font, the more general and easily understood, and the smaller the font, the more technical and intricate the given information is. For instance, on the page for "The principles of memory," the largest text explains memory in its most basic sense by stating the following: "Memory is a broad term used to refer to a number of different brain functions. The common feature of these functions is the re-creation of past experiences by the synchronous firing of neurons that were involved in the original experience." The smallest text on the same page, this time in reference to cortical areas is the following: "Episodic memories activate the areas originally involved in the experience that is being recalled." This is a great example of the difference in the technicality of a statement based upon its font size.

I feel that this book is really meant for people that have at least finished the middle school and I would not recommend any younger than that, as some of the book gets quite confusing for someone who has no idea what they are looking for.

The reference book style that The Human Brain Book is in makes it a wonderful source for anyone looking for answers to the questions that he or she has about the most important thing that each and everyone of us has: our brain. Overall I would rate this book a 4/5; I feel that it is quite an astounding book and it fulfills its promise of being "An illustrated guide to [the brain's] structure, function, and disorders," but at the same time, it is a bit overwhelming at points.

Review by Young Mensan Adam W., age 16, Greater Los Angeles Area Mensa

After Rita Carter's first edition, which was excellent and full of narrative, this one was a big disappointment. Lots of nice graphics, but many of them more filler than filled with information. Bummer.

COFFEE TABLE FODDER with interesting pictures. The DVD was a large disappointment and misrepresented. Instead of "showing" a broad range of relevant animated anatomy and physiology functions associated with the brain, as many medically oriented DVDs do, it simply provides a page index function for the book. For example, it is stated on the DVD if you want to know about axons and many other topics, etc.etc., reference pages x,y,z, etc as opposed to showing a 5 minute video of the process of interest with variations selected by the purchaser of the book/DVD combo-an expected computer based interactive capability. However, what is actually provided is not my definition of an "interactive" DVD......unless you count "looking up" the recommended pages in the book, as "interactive". This was a great opportunity missed on the part of the author!!!! Count that as "constructive" feedback. Ha....the joke is on the purchaser of this book.....and non-interactive DVD.

Want to learn about the Brain? Then this hardcover book is the Primer for you! I have always loved my "Mapping the Mind" book by Rita Carter, but this one suprasses it. Full of beautiful graphics and photos, with clear labels and text to compliment and to help the reader visualize and make sense of this "BIG" subject. At the price it is offered, I was shocked at how large the book was and how beautifully it was put together. Just amazing, not sure how they did this, I would expect a book of this detail and beauty to be priced at a $100. Congratulations and thanks go to Rita, her co-authors and artists!

This book has excellent views of the brain
together with an accompanying DVD. The fusiform
or gyrus is depicted to show the feed-ins to the
brain stem. Major nerve endings; such as, the
femoral nerve are shown in full color.

The protective coverings for the brain are shown.
These are the bony skull, meninges and
cerebrospinal fluid. Arteries which carry blood to
the brain are shown. The variable sizes of brains
are shown; such as, birds, mammals, man, reptiles etc.
The monolingual brain is contrasted to the multi-lingual
brain which has different red like patches.

Overall, the book would make an excellent purchase
for students of the human anatomy.

I ordered this book as well as "Brain:The Complete Mind" and there is no comparison. "Brain: The Complete Mind" has a prettier cover but the content is far more superficial and the illustrations are not nearly as educational and engaging. You will get a lot more enjoyment as well as understanding from "The Human Brain Book."

Great pictures and great information on different brain disorders. This book is ideal for anybody ranging from somebody learning about the brain for the first time to somebody studying medicine. Highly recommended.

This book is absolutely amazing! The DVD has great anatomical views and good information about the nervous system as a whole. The pictures in the book are gorgeous, the information is extensive, it is everything you could ever want out of a book on the human brain. I couldn't be happier with it!!!

This is a nicely illustrated book in classic DK style. Looks to be quite up-to-date, but I haven't read it all so I can't be sure.

Not all of the pictures are entirely appropriate (e.g. the sleep walking woman's outstretched arms) but they add colour and interest.

The DVD is a complete waste of space because of the 4+GB available on the DVD only about 220MB is used.