Brain, Vol. 123, No. 8, 1753-1755,
August 2000
© 2000 Oxford University Press
Book reviews |
NORMAL AND PATHLOGIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN BRAIN AND SPINAL CORD.
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Neurosciences Group, School of Biosciences, University of Wales, Cardiff, Cardiff, UK
The field of developmental neurobiology is one of the most dynamic and exciting research areas within the life sciences today. The use of molecular and genetic techniques has revolutionized our appreciation of the events underlying the development of the nervous system. The accelerating pace of our understanding, together with the likely developments that will follow completion of the mapping of the human genome, mean that it is likely that, within the next few decades, we will begin to gain a real insight into the basis of developmental neuropathologies. It should also be possible to make sense of the apparently disparate neurological and somatic anomalies seen in many of these conditions and to escape the limitations of purely phenomenological descriptions of developmental defects to which we have been restricted in the past.
To be of value, a contemporary text on this subject must therefore look forward, rather than backward, in its
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