The Human Central Nervous System (Hardcover)

The present edition of The Human Central Nervous System differs considerably from its predecessors. In previous editions, the text was essentially confined to a section dealing with the various functional systems of the brain. This section, which has been rewritten and updated, is now preceded by 15 newly written chapters, which introduce the pictorial material of the gross anatomy, the blood vessels and meninges and the microstructure of its various parts and deal with the development, topography and functional anatomy of the spinal cord, the brain stem and the cerebellum, the diencephalon and the telencephalon. Great pains have been taken to cover the most recent concepts and data. As suggested by the front cover, there is a focus on the evolutionary development of the human brain. Throughout the text numerous correlations with neuropathology and clinical n- rology have been made. After much thought, we decided to replace the full Latin terminology, cherished in all previous editions, with English and Anglicized Latin terms. It has been an emotional farewell from beautiful terms such as decussatio hipposideriformis W- nekinkii and pontes grisei caudatolenticulares. Not only the text, but also the p- torial material has been extended and brought into harmony with the present state of knowledge. More than 230 new illustrations have been added and many others have been revised. The number of macroscopical sections through the brain has been extended considerably. Together, these illustrations now comprise a complete and convenient atlas for interpreting neuroimaging studies.

Professor Nieuwenhuys received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Amsterdam. He worked for many years at the Netherlands Institute for Brain research (now: Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience: NIN) in the same city. During 25 years, he was a full professor at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, where he held chairs for human neuro-anatomy at the medical faculty, and for comparative neuro-anatomy at the faculty of natural sciences. After his retirement, he returned to the N.I.N. Professor Nieuwenhuys is the author of numerous scientific publications dealing with the structure of the CNS of invertebrates, vertebrates and man. He published a number of books with Springer Verlag, including The Human Central Nervous System (with J. Voogd and Chr. Van Huijzen; first edition 1976; second edition 1978; third edition 1988; fourth edition 2007), The Chemoarchitecture of the Brain (1985), The Central nervous System of Vertebrates (with H.J. ten Donkelaar and J.C. Nicholson; 3 vols. 1998).Professor Voogd received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Leiden (the Netherlands). He held chairs of human (neuro)anatomy at the University of Leiden, the Free University at Brussels and at the Erasmus University at Rotterdam. Professor Voogd is a worldwide known authority on the structural and functional organization of the cerebellum of vertebrates and man, on which he published numerous regular publications and reviews. With R. Nieuwenhuys and Chr. Van Huijzen he published The Human Central Nervous System (fourth edition 2007). He contributed chapters to several handbooks, among which the Central nervous System of Vertebrates (R. Nieuwenhuys, H.J. ten Donkelaar and J.C. Nicholson, Springer, 1998) and The Human Nervous System (G. Paxinos and J.K. Mai, eds; Elsevier, 2nd edition, 2004). Professor Voogd is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Comparative Anatomy.Christiaan van Huijzen, educated as an artist, became involved in several research projects in different scientific disciplines. From 1955 he was head of the Illustration Department of the medical faculty in Nijmegen and in 1971 he moved to the Anatomy Department, where he participated in educational and research projects. Together with Dr. J.H.M. van der Straaten he realized a multimedia project on topographical anatomy, which includes a.o. seven lifesize charts of the human body.