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List of Chapters

Chapters 1 to 4 build the foundation. After that, you can read in order or follow your interests. Each chapter lists its prerequisites at the top.

  1. Neurons, Glia, and the Nervous System: What neurons and glia are, how the nervous system is organized, and why myelin matters (case: multiple sclerosis).
  2. The Action Potential: How ion gradients and voltage-gated channels create the electrical signal of the nervous system (case: local anesthetics).
  3. Synapses and Neurotransmitters: How neurons talk chemically, the major neurotransmitters, and how drugs act at synapses (case: myasthenia gravis).
  4. A Tour of the Brain: Neuroanatomy: The lobes, deep structures, brainstem, cerebellum, spinal cord, and cranial nerves (case: Phineas Gage).
  5. Vision: From photoreceptors to the visual cortex, and how lesions cause specific visual field losses (case: pituitary tumor).
  6. Hearing, Touch, Taste, Smell, and Pain: The other senses, body maps in the cortex, and how pain works (case: phantom limb pain).
  7. Movement: Muscles, Reflexes, and Motor Control: Reflexes, motor cortex, basal ganglia, and cerebellum (case: Parkinson's disease).
  8. The Developing and Teenage Brain: How the brain builds itself, prunes connections, and changes through adolescence (case: fetal alcohol spectrum disorder).
  9. Learning, Memory, and Neuroplasticity: Memory systems, the hippocampus, and how synapses change with learning (case: Patient H.M.).
  10. Sleep and Brain States: Circadian rhythms, sleep stages, EEG, and why teens need more sleep (case: narcolepsy).
  11. Emotion, Stress, and the Body: The amygdala, the stress response, and the HPA axis (case: post-traumatic stress disorder).
  12. Language, Attention, and Decision-Making: Language networks, attention, and how the brain makes choices (case: aphasia).
  13. The Aging Brain and Neurodegeneration: Normal aging vs disease, and new treatments for Alzheimer's and ALS (cases: Alzheimer's disease, ALS).
  14. Brain Injury, Stroke, and Epilepsy: Concussion, stroke warning signs, and seizure first aid (cases: concussion, stroke, first seizure).
  15. Psychiatric Disorders, Developmental Disorders, and Addiction: Depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, autism, ADHD, and how addiction changes the brain (case: opioid overdose).
  16. How Doctors Examine the Brain: The neurological exam, lesion localization, and brain imaging: the capstone (case: a full neurological workup).

Appendices