Learning the brain
January 10, 2007 6:21 AM Subscribe
What good tools are out there for learning brain anatomy?
I've managed to study the cognitive sciences (ie psychology, cognitive & systems neuroscience, linguistics, etc) for a good long time now without ever building up a real sense of the layout of brain areas. I know the basics -- temporal, frontal, parietal, dorsal vs ventral, all that -- but what I'd really like is a tool that helps me build up a fairly detailed mental map of brain anatomy including at least some of the largest-scale information on connectivity, in a way that helps me relate the "functional" data of cognitive and systems neuroscience (usually given just by the names of brain areas) to the physical layout of the brain. Does anybody know of a good piece of (hopefully free or cheap) software, a good website, or a book, that would help me do this? I have the vague sense that standard anatomy teaching tools wouldn't be great for the kind of learning I have in mind, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong, and in any case I don't know what a good one of those would be either.
I've managed to study the cognitive sciences (ie psychology, cognitive & systems neuroscience, linguistics, etc) for a good long time now without ever building up a real sense of the layout of brain areas. I know the basics -- temporal, frontal, parietal, dorsal vs ventral, all that -- but what I'd really like is a tool that helps me build up a fairly detailed mental map of brain anatomy including at least some of the largest-scale information on connectivity, in a way that helps me relate the "functional" data of cognitive and systems neuroscience (usually given just by the names of brain areas) to the physical layout of the brain. Does anybody know of a good piece of (hopefully free or cheap) software, a good website, or a book, that would help me do this? I have the vague sense that standard anatomy teaching tools wouldn't be great for the kind of learning I have in mind, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong, and in any case I don't know what a good one of those would be either.
You can order sheep brains from various online science suppliers and do a dissection yourself. There's nothing quite like hands-on experience.
That said, the best tools for studying human brains might be a hacksaw and a questionable sense of ethics.
posted by chrisamiller at 12:54 AM on January 11, 2007
That said, the best tools for studying human brains might be a hacksaw and a questionable sense of ethics.
posted by chrisamiller at 12:54 AM on January 11, 2007
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When I was doing my second year neuroscience, I copied pages out of this in the library (like, with pencil and paper rather than a photocopier). Now I'm a grown up with a salary, I've bought my own copy to colour in myself.
posted by handee at 6:51 AM on January 10, 2007