Behavioral Neurobiology: The Cellular Organization of Natural Behavior

by Thomas J. Carew

Book Overview

Behavioral Neurobiology provides a novel treatment of the neural basis of behavior. The pedagogical premise of the book is that general insights into the neuronal organization of behavior can be gained by examining neural solutions that have evolved in animals to solve problems encountered in their particular environmental niches. Therefore, rather than organizing the chapters around general themes, such as "Motor Systems" or "Learning and Memory," the author presents in-depth "case studies" of individual animals; themes clearly emerge, but take on additional meaning by being considered in a real-world behavioral context.

While each chapter focuses on the world of a single animal, chapters are clustered into three major thematic sections: Sensory Worlds, Motor Strategies, and Behavioral Plasticity. At the end of each section is a "Coda" highlighting general principles of neuronal organization common to the chapters within it.

In writing the book, Dr. Carew has drawn on his many years of undergraduate teaching at Yale University. Behavioral Neurobiology does not presume a strong biological background, and is therefore suitable for a general undergraduate audience. However, the material is treated in sufficient depth to make the book useful for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in behavioral neurobiology or neuroethology as well.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0878930922
• ISBN13: 9780878930920
• Release Date: June 2004
• Publisher: Sinauer Associates Is an Imprint of Oxford Un
• Length: 419 Pages
• Weight: 1.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 7.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Excellent bridge from biology to behavior

With few exceptions the fields of neurobiology, ethology, and animal learning proceed in parallel in the academy, practitioners toiling productively in their respective fields but too rarely taking the time to exchange findings with people who share their questions if not their methods. This book builds wonderful, enlightening bridges between these disciplines, and in the process provides explanations for fascinating phenomena that cannot be fully understood at just one level of analysis. How, for example, does an owl know where in space the sound of a mouse scrabbling through leaves originates? How do bats manage to extract auditory images of the world precise enough to catch mosquitos on the fly? How do songbirds learn to sing just the right song in a world full of other birds singing other songs? These and many other specific questions are answered in ways that illuminate more general principles about how brains work so that by the end of the book one has a very strong sense of the possibility that the complexity of behavior in all its forms really can be brought into focus and explained in ways that are very satisfying. Given the technical nature of much of the basic research this is a very manageable read, although some prior background in one or more of the relevant disciplines makes the experience that much more rewarding. It's technically a text book, but it's a great read.