[.ca] A Colorful Introduction to the Anatomy of the Human ... (ISBN 0205548741)

an excellent study resource:
I'm a psychology major, and although I enjoy and do well with all other aspects of psychology, I had despaired of ever learning all of the brain structure and functions stuff. I finally bought this book as part of one last attempt to learn about the brain before I had to take the psych GRE subject test, and I found it to be amazingly helpful. For one thing, you get to color! That made it immediately much more appealing than my other study aids, which meant that I actually used it. In fact, I sometimes spent much more time on it than I meant to, because it is just such an interesting and fun book. It breaks the information down into small packages that are easy to learn, and moves through the material in a logical sequence. Each lesson consists of a few paragraphs describing about 3-5 structures, a column with a definition/brief description of each structure, and then a picture showing all 3-5 structures so that you can color each a different color, and see how they fit together. There are reviews and quizzes at the end of every chapter so that you can check that you've learned the material. Despite my previous cluelessness about brain structures, I found that I consistently got all the quiz questions right after working through the lessons. I would definitely recommend this book to any psych students who feel like they need to brush up on the brain, or to anyone else who is interested in learning about the brain. It's clear, easy to read, and fun!

Not too heavy, not too light:
--I am a medical professional who has not had a formal neuroanatomy course for some time. I've "returned" to neuroanatomy because brain science is so interesting, and because I now need to know it more and more for professional reasons. --This book is grrreat for its intended purpose -- providing an accurate and reasonably entertaining BASIC introduction (or re-introduction) to functional neuroanatomy (and a good foundation is both rare and valuable). Without neuroanatomy, you are soon in the realm of "sophistry and delusion" while reading about extremely exciting recent brain research. This book seems to be a reasonably adequate BASIC text and is a good "piggyback" for further work. It isn't intended to bog you down, and will probably provide most of the neuroanatomy you need to know to read a book by Edelman, D'Amasio, Ledoux, etc. more productively and enjoyably. --If you've never had a neuroanatomy course, breaking out the Crayola colored pencils is a good way to learn. If you have had a neuroanatomy class in the distant past, you can clear the cobwebs pretty quickly with this text. It's much less daunting than related texts, and you can always get to those later.

Brain Breeze:
Ever wonder why people, possibly yourself, perform the mundane to outlandish acts we witness? Ever curious to delve past surface psycho-babble and actually learn about human brain anatomy? Too deep? Not in this enjoyable reviewing workbook. One of the main reasons I keep returning to this educational tool, is the inclusion of exercise quizzes at the completion of each chapter. In fact, because it deals with only major concepts, progresses in small, logical, easy-to-learn increments, this book is practical for non-experts, students, and professionals alike. I majored in Psychology. However, those years are "tailights" now. Therefore, I recently found myself drawn to Chapter-10 "Brain Structures and Memory". Thankfully, the authors included answers for chapter quizzes. This is a breezy and fun book. You actually get to "color"! A great gift and addition to medical reference collections. Thank you for your interest & comments--CDS

Bird's eye view..:
Love the book. Up untill now, I've had "mosaic" type introduction to the brain. I never got to see the overall/interrelated and simple basics. The professional editors mention the phrase: "compared to the competition, this book".... I bought one of the "competitors". The virtues of the "other" book were the encyclopedic (thus, informative) detail, and the endurance that one could gain, by putting in 4 to 5 times as much effort into each page. The Pinel/Edwards book is its complement: rightly described via "Less is more.". By editing out detail and the use of 3D illustrations where ever possible \ovs 2D sections\c, confidence is built, based on knowledge & familiarity. The philosophy of: review, review & re-review does make for retention. And the overall simplicity of the book keeps the effort invested into learning from being onerous.