Annual Review of Neuroscience: vol 16.

This book is a collection of 28 review articles that are written by different authors, with each author having national prominence in his or her field. The articles emphasize the recent advances in molecular neuroscience, rather than in systemic or clinical neuroscience, and are, therefore, of only marginal interest to physical therapists. For the purposes of this review, I have grouped the articles into four major categories of neural circuits and systems analysis, neuroembryology, transmitters and synapses, and learning and memory.

The most interesting chapter in the book is written by KG Pearson and describes common motor control principles in both vertebrates and invertebrates. This article concentrates on central pattern generator circuits, using examples from the behaviors of many animal phyla. It addresses how these circuits are controlled by command neurons, by afferent feedback, and by neuromodulator chemicals. The section on afferent regulation may be of particular interest to physical therapists, because it provides recent findings concerning sensory regulation of phase transitions in gait, reflex gain adjustments for different postural and locomotor tasks, and load compensation for weight bearing. Several other chapters also address neuronal circuits or systems including brain integration systems, circuitry of the earthworm, circuit modeling, and behaviorally based modeling and computational approaches.

The second group contains six chapters that deal with neural embryology, covering topics such as planned neuronal death, neural crest cells, neuron gene expression, glial cells, neurite growth, and embryological brain patterning. Thirdly, there are eight chapters about neurotransmitters and synapses. They include transmitter uptake mechanisms, ion channel distribution, nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, dopamine receptors, NMDA receptors, peptides of the sympathetic ganglia, modulation of transmitter release, and transmitter control of postsynaptic neuronal gene expression.

Finally, there are eight chapters concerned with information processing, learning, and memory They include memory mechanisms for noncognitive information, auditory temporal processing, temporal cortex processing of visual information, primate visual pathways, verbal processing, neuroanatomy of memory, computational models of learning and memory, and memory mechanisms for noncognitive information. Unfortunately, the review on noncognitive memory only briefly mentions motor skill learning.

Only one chapter deals with a neurological disease which is known as neurofibromatosis type I, or von Recklinghausen disease. This review focuses primarily on localization of the responsible autosomal gene and its formation of the essential protein neurofibromin. The clinical symptoms of this disorder are only briefly mentioned.

Each review is approximately 30 pages long. Some include sparse illustrations, and all have extensive, current bibliographies. The articles are written at a high level of complexity that can best be understood only by other scientists who are already familiar with that topic, not by novices looking to be exposed to new topics. This annual review book may be useful for physical therapists who are involved with graduate teaching or basic research in the area of neuroscience. This book, however, is unlikely to be of interest to clinicians.