Fundamentals of Human Neuropsychology [Hardcover]

Kolb and Whishaw's (K+W's) `Fundamentals...' is an excellent neuropsychology text for clinicians, undergraduate psychologists, and postgraduate neuropsychology students. Its strengths are the great breadth of coverage and the easy-to-read style. The chapter headings make good sense for students studying neuropsychology, and for clinicians who want to find information on a specific topic, since they are arranged into sections that that make neuroanatomical and functional sense. Section 1 deals with the theoretical and historical backgrounds to neuropsychology; cellular and cortical organization of the nervous system; psychopharmacology; and brain imaging. Section 2 deals with gross cortical organization, including the specialised sensory and motor organization of the brain, and cerebral asymmetry. Section 3 deals with the major divisions of the cortex: the parietal, temporal and frontal lobes (the occipital lobe is covered in section 2), and disconnection syndromes. Section 4 is probably the most useful section for clinicians, and deals with the brain's higher cognitive functions such as memory, language, emotion, and visual perception. Section 5 is a mixed bag, dealing with abnormal neuropsychology, and brain development / plasticity. This last section probably needs to be separated into two sections and expanded in future editions.

The great strengths of `Fundamentals', as with most big-budget American texts, are its logical chapter organization, comprehensive index, breadth of coverage, great readability, and high presentation values. The text is broken up with good diagrams illustrating neuroanatomy and experimental procedures, and other comprehension and presentation aids like text boxes containing study questions, research summaries and clinical case examples.

Students or practitioners of neuropsychology, in the UK at least, might be torn between buying either this or Andrewes' `Neuropsychology from Theory to Practice' as a first text. To my mind, K+W win hands-down. Although Andrewes' book has a greater emphasis on clinical practice and (maybe) contains more clinical references, the presentation is messier, the diagrams are not nearly as good, and it has several editing errors which make some paragraphs indecipherable unless you have prior knowledge of the subject. The last point is the most serious shortcoming of Andrewes: neuropsychology is a hard-enough subject for the average psychologist, without the subject being obfuscated by inadequate editing. Andrewes' book is more suited to neuropsychologists in-the-know, while K+W have something to offer the novice as well as the expert.

A practicing clinical psychologist will find this book useful to look up particular neuropsychological phenomena, because information is easy to find and understand in K+W. With their basic priming from K+W, they could then consult Lezak for additional clinical research and assessment procedures, and Fitzgerald and Folan-Curran for neuroanatomical information and diagrams. These three texts together would provide most clinicians with enough information to generate hypotheses and begin to assess most neuropsychological difficulties.

A 6th edition is out in 2008, so unless you are in a hurry or can get this at a reduced price, I suggest you hang around a bit before forking out!

I have studied and worked in the field of neuropsychology for many years and have recently started post doctoral training. I have bought a huge amount of neuro books over the years, and I still think that this is by far the best. A neurologist friend of mine recently borrowed this book: he described it as "fantastic" and subsequently purchased it. It provides you with all of the 'nitty gritty' neuroscience stuff and very clearly relates it to cognitive function. Unlike many other neuro books in the field, it is exceptionally easy to read and understand, and has very nice accompanying illustrations. I have learnt a huge amount from this book.

When I first got this I was a bit disappointed since I was looking for something with a slightly more clinical focus, but with reading it I've grown to quite like it. Its a book which has been updated a few times and while a lot of the material has just been dragged over from earlier work there is quite a bit of new stuff.
The individual sections are quite readable and are coherently ordered.
Personal gripes with it? Well, few I suppose really. Its called "Fundamentals of ~", and thats what it is. The fundamentals. There isn't so much regarding the clinical applications and implications of knowledge of these fundamentals, so bear this in mind when buying it, but this text is a pretty manageable resource for getting your head round the basics enough to work the rest out for yourself. Its certainly helped me sharpen up on stuff I've always been a bit shakey on.