Brain Architecture

The second edition revisits one of the most fundamental questions in biology: how the brain produces our thoughts and emotions, guides our deliberate actions in the world, and keeps the body's vital processes running. Its subject can seem overwhelming in its complexity and detail, and this revision sets out to make that complexity manageable.

The opening section introduces the nervous system's basic components and how they function, examined from the cellular level up to the whole system. Rather than presenting the material in a single fixed order, the author builds it around three lines of inquiry that move from simple to complex: the history of neuroscience research, the evolution of the nervous system, and the embryonic development of the vertebrate central and peripheral nervous systems.

The second part maps the brain's wiring, showing how its regions connect and how those connections shape behavior and the body's internal state. A newly introduced four-system network model organizes this structure and function. The book is thoroughly updated and richly illustrated, and it suits anyone curious about the science behind the brain.