Brain biochemistry

This volume belongs to a series of compact primers written for students who are nearing the end of an undergraduate degree or starting graduate work in the biological sciences. Its purpose is to introduce the parts of modern research that standard textbooks either skip or treat too briefly, so that readers can move on to scholarly reviews with a real understanding. The work of the series is published in many scattered journals and is often highly technical, which can make it hard to see the bigger picture.

Each author is asked to write a short outline of a single field, taking for granted that readers already remember much of a basic biology textbook. Building on that foundation, the book sets out the conceptual framework that guides current investigation in its subject and points to the theoretical and practical obstacles that researchers still have to overcome.