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book reviews
books on developmental neurosciencereviewed by T. Nelson |
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book reviews
books on developmental neurosciencereviewed by T. Nelson |
Reviewed by T. Nelson
How can such a nice book on such an important topic be so aggravating to read?
It gives up to date, detailed information about the genes and proteins involved in genetic disorders. It is highly technical without too much repetition. Yet I struggled to stop myself from throwing it against the wall.
Part of the reason is the writing style. Most of the chapters sound as if they were thrown together by a grad student who knew nothing about the topic and has no idea what's important and what's not, but was told to put together a 294-page report by Tuesday.
A good example is in Chapter 2, where we get basic information about neurons. Whoever wrote it evidently really liked Thomas Südhof's 2018 review paper on the topic, saying this on page 22:
Südhof (2018) reviewed synapse formation and emphasized the importance of cell adhesion molecules and proposed that cell adhesion molecules are critical to the establishment and organization of synapses and for synaptic plasticity.
That's such a great opening, why not use it for the next six paragraphs too?
In a 2018 review on synapse formation, Südhof emphasized . . .
Südhof emphasized the abundance of cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) that play important roles at synapses.
Südhof focused on specific cellular adhesion molecules that play key roles in synapse formation.
In science, this style means the author doesn't want to take responsibility for what the paper says in case it turns out to be wrong. Literally half the paragraphs in the book start out this way. It gives the impression that this stuff was just discovered a few years ago by whoever wrote the review paper on it. No one asked me, but if they did I'd recommend doing what everybody else does: read the review paper, assume it's mostly correct if you don't have time to check, and then lift the references to the original papers. That's what they're for!
The author also seems to hate tables, so there are many unordered lists of the genes and proteins involved in the various genetic diseases. For some reason the formatting on most of them is messed up, and around page 170 the author gives up and switches to numbered lists.
There are also quite a number of errors, most of which seem to be careless typos, like writing mRNA as MRNA and LTD (long-term depression, though it's not defined anywhere) as Ltd., as if it's a company name:
During Ltd., dendritic spine shrinkage occurred . . . .
Many genes, like HLD3, 4, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 are misidentified, and NG2 is incorrectly identified as CSPG2 instead of CSPG4 (chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan 4). The claim on page 105 that NOTCH3 is “also referred to as CADASIL” is a yowzer. One is a protein and the other is the name of a disease.
It's a shame: if the information had been checked, organized, and presented a little better this could have been a nice little introductory textbook on genetic diseases.
The author is mainly interested in genetic neurodevelopmental disorders, which are covered in Chapter 7. These diseases include ciliopathies, mitochondrial disorders, and many types of ASD. It's a no-nonsense approach: not once does the author ever use the patronizing term “neurodivergent.” In this chapter we start actually getting a few citations to the primary literature instead of just review papers. But she blasts through the topic too rapidly, mainly listing the genes without telling us much about the diseases themselves. The next chapter on epileptiform disorders and ataxias is the only one that follows a standard presentation style: what age do the patients get it, what are the symptoms, and why the defective genes cause problems. Then the remaining chapters go off into the fairyland of pollution, environmental stewardship, and climate studies and can be easily skipped.
If I were an editor, I'd say this to every writer, but especially this one: get rid of the stuff you're not really interested in and expand the part you know a lot about.
Some background in biochemistry is recommended. And some kind of covering to protect your walls.
nov 12 2022
Reviewed by T. Nelson
Taylor discusses neuropsychiatric disorders common in children and adolescents including autism, tourette, ADHD, psychosis and schizophrenia, dyslexia, epilepsy, head injury, and genetic disorders. Remarkably well balanced and skeptical of fads that sometimes pervade the field. Taylor is an emeritus professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at King's College in London. He recommends Fenichel's Clinical Pediatric Neurology for more details on neurological disorders.
I've read Fenichel's myself, and it's a very well organized summary of the many things that can go wrong with a infant's or child's brain, how to identify them, and what to do about them. It's mostly nontechnical and I highly recommend it for any parent. (I think many of them must have it already. It's amazing how much patients know about all these different drugs.)
There are also many good textbooks on pediatric genetic disorders and pediatric psychopharmacology, both of which only get superficial coverage here. The strength of Taylor's book is its clarity about which beliefs in the field are supported by science.
Take autism. In the past, it was thought that autism spectrum disorder or ASD protected children against drug abuse; however, according to Taylor, the normalization of ASD and its association with ADHD, which is often associated with drug abuse, have changed that picture. Indeed, people diagnosed with ASD now have twice the risk of drug abuse as age-matched controls. The author also says that dyslexia is not a myth, but research has discredited the idea that reversing letters and left-right disorientation constitute a specific syndrome that differs from the normal difficulties children have in learning to read. He also explains why Asperger's syndrome is falling out of favor as a diagnosis.
An outstanding book that adds much-needed rigor to a topic that has sometimes been dominated by educators and pop psychologists.
apr 03 2022
Reviewed by T. Nelson
Of the eight chapters in this book, the two that specifically discuss adolescence (‘Puberty’ and ‘The Implications of Adolescent Neuroscience on Policy’, which is the author's specialty) are the most relevant to the subject. Why, for example, do children reach puberty earlier in families without a father? There are several theories, the most compelling being that it's evolution's way of ensuring that they will reproduce in a dangerous environment.
The other chapters are a good basic overview of developmental psychology suitable for an undergraduate college course and cover the basics of fMRI, important early discoveries in neuropsychology, and topics like the connection between dopamine and risk-taking using simple, nontechnical language.
MRI studies have shown that brain development occurs at different rates in different regions. This causes many problems in adolescence. Male and female brains differ so much that even the reasons they have car accidents differ: males are typically distracted by events outside the car and females by events inside the car.
(There's an easy joke there: the male drivers are probably distracted by female pedestrians and the female drivers are probably asking, “I wonder what this funny little knob is supposed to do?”. Yes, I know, it's sexist, sue me.)
There is a brief window during puberty when the region the brain switches to use the fusiform face area exclusively to recognize faces. During this window, people have increased difficulty recognizing other humans. Similar focusing of brain areas occurs in the posterior superior temporal sulcus, which is involved in eye gaze processing, while the frontotemporal lobes important for good judgment aren't fully developed until adulthood.
Environment is also important: I lived with a different family for a couple months at age twelve and found it nearly impossible to study there. The TV was blaring constantly, the air was full of clouds of cigar smoke, and the adults repeatedly shamed me for reading library books and keeping a scientific notebook in which I had recorded facts like the electronic configurations of the elements. My grades dropped. It's no wonder that children in such an environment would show impaired academic development.
Children aged 2–16 with autism were found to have 67% more neurons in their dorsolateral prefrontal cortex than normal children. This shows the importance of neuronal pruning during development. Dopamine, sometimes thought of as a ‘reward’ neurotransmitter, increases during adolescence and then decreases in adulthood. Though the author doesn't mention this, dopamine is also increased in schizophrenia, which peaks in late adolescence. Could there be a parallel there? Developmental Neuropsychiatry (reviewed above) has more details on these questions.
This is essentially a book on basic neuropsychology written in a friendly, accessible style suitable for laymen or undergraduates. Has a photo of a cute little kid staring at a marshmallow while the experimenter measures how long he can resist temptation. PC writing style.
may 01 2022