Neurophysiology Texts

[Guest YongQ]

Hi Ian,

 

Have you heard of any good neurophysiology texts out there?

[Guest Carolyn]

I used a couple of resources... The MacKay Neurophys without tears book that Dr. MacKay from UofT published (mine was left over from Phys320 at UofT - not sure if he still publishes one), Neurology and Neurosurgery Illustrated by Lindsay and Bone has some good clinical application. I also liked Neuroanatomy by Haines (good explanation of the different tracts) and finally the Lange book is good for clinical application. There is also a great little neuro clinical skills book called Neurological Examination Made Easy by Fuller -- I unfortunately was not able to find an all-in-one book for neurology which was kind of too bad).

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi Carolyn,

 

Dr. MacKay does still publish the book you mentioned. It's "Neuro 101--Neurophysiology Without Tears". The latest version is the "end-of-millenium", 3rd edition, as far as I know. (I picked it up at the UT bookstore earlier this year.)

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest Ian Wong]

Neurophysiology? We didn't go into it intensively enough to warrant looking at textbooks, but rather used the lecturer's notes. As far as Neuroanatomy goes, the big trouble is tha different books very often use slightly different terminology, and two books could vary by just enough to really screw you up. Best to figure out which textbook the lecturers generally like to use, (and which your classmates in past years have used), and stick with that.

 

Failing that, I really liked High Yield Neuroanatomy, a $25 USMLE review book with a TON of useful information in a small and concise book. There's a Mosby's Crash Course Neurology book, which is excellent for clinical use. I didn't like the Haines atlas, as I found it too detailed for what I needed it for, and our course notes and photomicrographs seemed much clearer. The Young and Young Neuroanatomy also didn't strike me as that useful either; I thought it was pretty wordy at times. Clinical Neuroanatomy Made Ridiculously Simple was a little too simple, and I didn't get through the whole book before deciding that it wasn't what I needed.

 

I guess for me, the best two books were the High Yield, and Mosby's Crash Course. However, I relied on my lecture notes a lot, which I think is a smart strategy if your lecturers are making up the exam, the reason being that you could literally study this subject for days, and still not learn much that you'll actually get tested on, due to the vastness of the subject.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Ian

UBC, Med 3