Skip to content

References: A Tour of the Brain: Neuroanatomy

  1. 1.4 The Brain: Structure and Function - OpenStax, Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) - A free, college-level tour of the lobes, corpus callosum, thalamus, hypothalamus, brainstem, and cerebellum. A good next step after this chapter, with clear figures of each region.

  2. 1.2 Organization of the Nervous System - OpenStax, Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) - Covers gray and white matter, the meninges, the ventricles and cerebrospinal fluid, and the brain's blood vessels. Its "Great Lakes" comparison makes the ventricle system easy to picture.

  3. 1.5 The Peripheral Nervous System: PNS - OpenStax, Introduction to Behavioral Neuroscience (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) - Explains cranial and spinal nerves and compares the sympathetic, parasympathetic, and enteric divisions of the autonomic nervous system. Useful for reviewing Section 4.12.

  4. Brain Basics: Know Your Brain - National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NIH) - A short, readable government overview of the brain's main parts and what each lobe does. Good for a quick review before a Brain Bee.

  5. The Teen Brain: 7 Things to Know - National Institute of Mental Health (NIH) - Explains why the prefrontal cortex is one of the last brain regions to mature and what that means for teenagers. A preview of Chapter 8.

  6. Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) - National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NIH) - Describes how brain contusions happen, how CT and MRI are used, and what rehabilitation teams do. Background for this chapter's bedside case.

  7. Restoring Phineas Gage: a 150th retrospective - Malcolm Macmillan, Journal of the History of the Neurosciences (2000) - The historian's study showing that many textbook accounts of Gage are inaccurate and often borrow traits from other patients. Read the abstract to see how myths spread in science writing.

  8. Rehabilitating Phineas Gage - Malcolm Macmillan and Matthew Lena, Neuropsychological Rehabilitation (2010) - Argues, from old and newly found records, that Gage eventually made a surprisingly good social recovery, helped by the structure of his work. The basis for this chapter's "What Really Happened" section.

  9. Mapping Connectivity Damage in the Case of Phineas Gage - Van Horn and colleagues, PLOS ONE (2012) - A free, open-access study that used scans of Gage's real skull and modern brain-wiring maps to estimate his injury. It shows that white matter damage mattered as much as damage to the cortex.

  10. Phineas Gage - Wikipedia - A detailed, well-referenced article on Gage's accident, treatment, later life, and the debate over his injury. Use it as a starting point, then check its sources.