Physiology of Behaviour (Physiology of Behaviour - Neil Carlson)

Member Name: HelenW

Product:	Physiology of Behaviour - Neil Carlson
Date:	07/04/08 (184 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clear, easy to use

Disadvantages: Quite expensive

Physiology of Behaviour - Neil R Carlson

Published by Pearson.

I have the international edition (ISBN 0 205 49692 X) which is not available for sale in the United States or Canada.

This book is big and informative, but fortunately not as big as some textbooks, so is ok to carry around without hurting your back or arms! It has 734 pages, but that includes all the contents, index, references and photo references.

I brought this for the psychology part of my course, a module called Neuropsychology. However, this book goes into scientific detail about humans, so I would have thought it will be just as useful for people studying biology related courses like biological sciences, ecology etc.

I found it really easy to read, because it breaks text down and illustrates points with diagrams and pictures which makes biology easier to learn. It also has a CD rom with it, which has moving animations on which are also helpful because it actually shows you what is happening instead of just explaining in text and leaving you to picture the processes that are occuring. There is also a list of important terms which are broken down into a small glossary at the end of each few pages. I found this useful because it allowed me to cover the box up to test myself which is useful for active revision. All the scientific terms which are highlighted in bold in the text are listed in the glossary.

I brought this text book to be able to have my own copy to pore over, because although our university policy is that most textbooks are in the library, it doesn't mean there are anywhere near enough for the students that need it. For about 5 copies of this book, we have around 300 students on the course. Therefore my own copy allowed me to use it whenever I wish, and to be able to circle things in pencil that I needed to go over or redo. Also, I could guarentee it was the most recent edition.

This text book was quite expensive at £40, but I brought it from my student union bookshop and if you shop around you should be able to find it cheaper, for example, from Amazon or Play or even EBay. Although quite expensive it was worth it because I could use it whenever I wanted, things were written well and illustrations were good and the CD is included.

Chapter 1 - Introduction - A general overview about how thinking makes us unique etc

Chapter 2 - Structure and Function of the Nervous System
This chapter goes right down to the basics of the cells of the nervous sytem, for example the parts of a neuron, their function, synapses, synaptic transmission and how they connect to other cells. It also goes into DNA coding, and although there is a lot of explanatory text and diagrams, I found it a lot harder to read as it didn't seem as broken down as elsewhere in the book. It took a lot of reading and trying to relate it to diagrams several times before I could really grasp what it was actually saying, and my friends on my course also thought this. Between sections within a chapter is an interim summary which helps to consolidate everything together, and personally I found these helpful because I thought it makes everything relate together better.
The next section is communication within a neuron which personally I struggle with a lot, but this book was definately helpful. It really lays out clearly the action potential and what happens with the membrane potential. Before I read this chapter I was completely lost with the diffusion of sodium and chloride ions and where they were going and what they were supposed to be doing! But this book explains it so well. I thought the CD ROM also helped with release of neurotransmitters etc, because instead of just relying on the diagrams and arrows, the moving animations actually show what happens which cleared up a lot for me. Also, it gives ideas for further reading and questions for thought, but these can also be used as essay practice I'm sure.

Chapter 3 - Structure of the Nervous System
This chapter also goes right down to the basics at the beginning, which are useful for someone starting from the beginning of studies of the brain (i.e. it talks about dorsal, ventral, rostral and caudal positions etc). It also breaks down the Nervous System to the basics i.e. CNS and PNS - the brain + spinal cord and the nerves and peripheral ganglia respectively; the meninges and ventricles and more basic brain anatomy. Although I had studied this before I found that they glossary section was ideal for revision of these various parts, as were the diagrams if you cover the labels. I think in this part the only thing missing are diagrams with no labels in the book for more effective revision. It talks about the history of the Central Nervous SYstem and how it froms from conception and how it develops up until the brain aof the foetus is fully developed. What I particularly liked in this chapter was the break down of areas of the brain i.e. Forebrain, the ventricles in that part, the subdivision (telencephalon and diencephalon) etc, although it's not set out as a tree diagram its layout helped me to visualise it as that which really helped. It also goes into as much detail as it did previously for the PNS.

Chapter 4 - Psychopharmacology (how various drugs control specific psychological disorders).
Although I hadn't studied psychophramacology before I took this module, I found it explanatory to the most basic elements of this area, which I was glad about! This is the Principles of psychopharmacology section. It talks about how drugs actually *work* i.e. how they cross barriers to find their sites of action but this was a small section which seemed to go through quite a lot in 2 paragraphs. It talks about the routes of administration like intravenous, intraperitoneal etc most of which I didn't know about, so I'm glad that it assumes nothing. The section about distribution of drugs within the body is useful because it talks about binding for example binding to albumin and again has plenty of diagrams with arrows to show what happens, and I liked that it has a different diagram for each stage which shows more clearly the process of binding. The last part of the principles of psychophramacology section is the placebo effects, and this was what I found most interesting.
The next section is the sites of drug action but me and my friends found this quite difficult but was still explained well with plenty of diagrams etc. I hated getting through this chapter because it was so difficult and later on in the chapter there are pages and pages of text which were hard to break up in to bits. It was definately a case of ploughing through this bit, personally I wouldn't have brought it if I was only interested in this chapter if there were similar books around but that could just be that I haven't studied it before and found it so difficult.

Chapter 5 - Methods and strategies of Research

Chapter 6 - Vision
This chapter goes into a lot of detail about the anatomy of the visual system to begin with for example the parts of a photoreceptor and all the parts of the eye as well as the visual system in the brain for example, the striate cortex and also the parts and function of the retina. This chapter also contains basic details of case studies illustrating concepts and what can go wrong with sight/recognising what you see. I think the only down side about this is that it doesn't give you all the details of the published study in case you ever want to refer to it in written work/exams or to just read more about it. I found everything was well explained and as well as diagrams, it also shows MRI scans which shows you the actual area rather than a drawn diagram which I liked.

Chapter 7 - Audition, the Body Senses and Chemical Senses
This chapter, as with all the others, goes into detail about how we hear. Except there is a lot more basic information given, I'm not sure whether than is merely regarding the complexity of this area or study or not. The principles of sound and hearing in this book are anatomy of the ear, auditory pathway, perception of pitch, loudness, timbre, spatial location and complex sounds. The next section goes into the brain cortex which is most involved with hearing and decoding what you have heard. Following this section about hearing are other senses: somatosenses, gustation (taste), and olfaction (smell) which has as much information as the audition section and as well as telling you about the anatomy and basic components are the parts of the brain that correspond.

Chapter 8 - Control of movement
This is a shorter chapter which looks at the parts of our body which allow us to move: the muscles. It also looks at reflexive control of movement which contains the monosynaptic stretch and relex and the gamma motor system. Following this section is the control of movement by the brain. This is the motor cortex and the role of this and each pathway within in brain. It talks about deficits of skilled movement, which are collectively known as the apraxias, and also parts of the brain which help with movement: the basal ganglia (in the midbrain), the cerebellum (the part at the base of the brain) and the reticular formation.

Chapter 9 - Sleep and Biological Rhythms
I found this section one of the most easy to read and to actually get all the way through. Also, I thought it was the most interesting chapter I had been set. It talks about the stages of sleep and what brain activity we have during each stage. It then details the disorders involved with sleep for example, insomnia, narcolepsy, REM sleep disorder and problems with slow wave sleep. It also contains the same sort of case studies as with the vision section. Also as with most chapters of this book, it loks at neual control of sleep and wake and parts of the brain that control this. It also goes into biological clocks, i.e. circadian rhythms, the suprachiasmic nucleus and how changes come about in the circadian rhythm for example shift work and jet lag.


Chapter 10 - Reproductive Behaviour
This chapter looks at development of people, hormonal control of behaviours, neural control of behaviours and parental behaviours.
This chapter begins with the basics of gametes, fertilisation etc. It's quite a short chapter, and hasn't been one of my set chapters. As with all the others, it has the usual case studies for example the Bruce/Brenda study which is quite a well known study in psychology and a classic study for the nature/burture debate.

Chapter 11 - Emotion
This chapter looks at the emotions as response patterns for example fear, anger, aggression and impulse control, and hormonal control of aggressive behaviour.
The next section is communication of emotions which include facial expression of emotions: innate responses, neural basis of communication of emotions: recognition i.e. brain responses, and neural basis of the communication of emotions: expression. The last section of this chapter is about feelings of emotion i.e. the James Lange theory and feedback from simulated emotions. This chapter also has the usual case studies and interim summaries, which I think piece it all together well. In this chapter we also have diagrams etc, the part I found most interesting was that of Phineas Gage who had a steel rod through his head in a mining accident and the consequent behaviours. The only part of this chapter I didn't think were useful were the pictures of faces showing emotion, purely for the reason that these are so exaggerated and don't really represent the extent of how people show emotion.

Chapter 12 - Ingestive Behaviour
This chapter looks at meals/thirst/metabolism. It starts with again, the basics of the topic for example the physiological regulatory mechanisms; it then goes onto drinking which entails facts about fluid balance, the two types of thirst: osmometric thirst and volumetric thirst. It then continues to include neural mechanisms of thirst. The next section is about eating/ metabolism. This includes what we need to eat for, what a metabolism is, how food is absorbed, fasting and the nutrient reservoirs we have in our body. The next section is what starts a meal i.e signals from the environment, signals from the stomach and metabolic signals. What stops a meal is the section following, and this includes head factors, gastric factors, intestinal factors, liver factors, insulin etc and all the related functions. The next section is brain mechanisms involved in eating/using the energy from food.

Chapter 13 - Learning and Memory
This is a longer chapter in this textbook. The first section is the nature of learning and the basic psychological and physiological ideas. The next section is synaptic plasticity: long term potentiation and long term depression. The next section looks at perceptual learning, and the sections following these include classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning and related learning. For example, human anterograde amnesia, spared learning abilities, declarative and non declarative memories, anatomy of anterograde amnesia, the role of the hippocampal formation in consolidation of declarative memories, episodic and semantic memories, spatial memory, confabulation: role of the prefrontal cortex in evaluating the accuracy of memories, relational leaning in laboratory animals, the role of the hippocampal formation in memory consolidation, and the role of hippocampal neurogenesis in learning.

Chapter 14 - Human Communication
This chapter looks at the production of speech and comprehension and the brain mechanisms involved in this. This is the first section, and specifically: ;ateralisation, speech production, speech comprehension, aphasia in deaf people and the bilingual brain. I found this section interesting for example the deficits in comprehension and production which stem from damage to Brocas and Wernickes areas. The next section looks at disorders of reading and writing for exmaple its relation to aphasia, pure alexia, working towards understandings of reading and writing and developmental dyslexias. This was a short chapter, which I found quite interesting because it included more information than the lecture notes did.

Chapter 15 - Neurological Disorders
This chapter looks at disorders and illnesses that can occur within the brain for example tumours, seizure disorder, cerebrovascular accidents. An interim summary follows and the nest section looks at disorders of development, for example, what toxic chemicals can do, and inherited metabolic disorders, and downs syndrome. It then also looks at degenterative disorders for example transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, parkinsons disease, huntingtons disease, alzheimers disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis. The following sections finishes with disorders caused by infectious diseases.

Chapter 16 - Schizophrenia and the Affective Disorders
This chapter mainly covers schizophrenia for example a description of the disorder, theheritability chances, the pharmacology of the disorder (i.e. the dopamine hypothesis), schizophrenia as a neurological disorder i.e. the processes within the brain. The next section then looks at Major affective disorder and as with the schizophrenia section, gives a description, heritability, physiological threatment and the role of monoamines, evidence for brain abnormalities, the role of the 5 HT transporter (i.e. a theory) and the role of circadian rhythms (usually in contect of sleep patterns).

Chapter 17 - Anxiety Disorders, Autistic Disorder, Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder and Stress Disorders
CHapter 17 looks at each of the above mentioned disorders in order. Anxiety disorder consists of panic disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder. The Autistic disorder section looks at a description and possible causes although no specific reason for it's existance has been highlighted. The next section is the attention deficit disorder which again looks at a description and possible causes. The stress disorder section looks at the physiology of the stress response, health effects of long term stress, effects of stress on the brain, posttraumatic stress disorder and psychoneuroimmunology.

Chapter 18 - Drug Abuse
This chapter outlines the common features of addiction for example looks into positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement etc and then craving and relapse. The next section looks at the comonly abused drugs, these are: opiates, stimulant drugs, nicotine, alcohol, and cannabis. The last sections are the chances of heredity and drug abuse and therapy for drug abuse.

Summary: Definately useful for biology based modules