Customer Reviews

The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Fifth Edition (American Psychiatric Press Textbook of Neuropsychiatry)

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Another behemoth product of the APA publishing empire. I have not read Dr. Silver's TBI chapter alluded to by the above reviewer so cannot comment on it. I presume it is a good read since he edits an entire book devoted to the subject, another APP spawn. My biggest criticisms of this book are 1. the price, 2. the utter unevenness. With respect to the latter, what I mean is, who is this book meant for? For example, the neuroimaging chapter by Hurley and Taber is fair. Here, the illustrations are invaluable. The explanation of MRI is quite weak and any thoughtful discussion of different imaging approaches used experimentally is absent. It is essentially written at the level of an interested medical student or junior resident, not a subspecialist who frequents the neuropsychiatry/behavioral neurology literature. The chapter on alcohol is simply abysmal -- pages and pages on glutamate receptors in animals and nary a word to help the clinician. Korsakoff, Wernicke anyone? Wikipedia gives a better outline of the clinical effects of EtOH on the brain. Who is this chapter meant for? As a clinician I do not care about animal work on glutamate receptors and as a scientist, should I care to, I will find a review article on the subject. Herein lies the crux of the problem: This book satisfies neither the clinician nor the scientist. The former should see Moore's excellent, succinct, well-organized text, or a classic like Lishman (not the 09 edition which has not yet been reviewed to my knowledge and has major changes with respect to authorship) or Pinkus. For a more advanced text, see Mesulam. If you want an overview of the basic science in neuropsychiatry, see Kandel and Schwartz. See Trimble's book on the anatomy of neuropsychiatry.

I do not mean to be overly harsh but this is a pricey book and I do not think its price is justified. Was it simply tweaked for new edition?? Hurley and Taber's chapter looks remarkably similar to the previous edition.

In summary, this book is a disappointment. One can see that the editors have a large number of publishing project so perhaps this undertaking did not receive the attention that it deserved. It is definitely not suitable for clinical or experimental work. I would like a refund.

StuartYudofsky,M.D.and Robert Hales,M.D.'s ambitious project of bringing the exciting and dramatically evolving disciplines of biologic psychiatry and behavioral neurology has been rendered magnificently both in breadth and depth in the assiduously crafted and edited fifth edition of the APP Textbook of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences. The textbook has been thoughtfully edited and produced so that clinicians from various disciplines can locate source material pertaining either to broad neurobehavioral disorders or to more specific behavioral-psychiatric symptoms. Whereas many textbooks that ambitiously attempt to cover both the neuroscience as well as clinical aspects of neurological disorders are uneven in there coverage and clarity, Yudofsky and Hales have done a masterful job of giving an in depth though succinct neuroscience background that informs the clinical and therapeutic discussions making this textbook the single most authoritative and clinically comprehensive text dealing with the behavioral neuroscience.
I am a neurological consultant at a traumatic brain injury unit and on receiving my copy( the text,figures and diagrams being first rate!)I carefully read Jonathan Silver, et.al chapter on the Neuropsychiatric Aspects of Traumatic Brain Injury which in addition to being superbly written gave a wealth of practical approaches and recommendations which were of value both to patients and their families as well as members of the multidisciplinary team. Those involved in teaching will find Harel, and Tranel's Functional Neuroanatomy: Neuropsychological Correlates of Cortical and Subcortical Damage and Ovsiew's Bedside Neuropsychiatry: Eliciting the Clinical Phenomena of Neuropsychiatric Illness having done the hard work of sifting through the voluminous literature to present a remarkably succinct and thorough discussion. With the APP making all figures and diagrams expertly rendered in CD-ROM format you are ready for lift off in giving well informed presentations
Without reservation I would recommend this textbook to anyone interested in getting a bird's eye view of the exciting developments and their clinical application in the behavioral neurosciences. It is must reading for those interested in training and certification in neuropsychiatry/behavioral neurology. For a one reach resource it is the best buy (actually in light of its extensive and cutting edge coverage a bargain)for consulting neurologist, psychiatrist, neuropsychologist, cognitive- behavioral therapist.

Tried to read in library several times, but can't force myself to swallow the boring pages. When written in succint and clarifying style, neuropsychiatry does not have that much to write to build this big a volume. If you have to write more, you have to put in a lot of he said she said trivia, and lose the intriguing story line. I just don't see this book is useful to any body - either clinicians or researchers.