Reddit reviews Fundamental Neuroscience

Principles is getting old, unfortunately. 11 years old is a damn long time in neuroscience. The only reasonable replacement in the field, in terms of depth, is Squire's Fundamental Neuroscience (amazon). Kandel Jessel & co are scheduled to put out a new edition of Principles of Neural Science in spring 2012, but it's likely that deadline will pass.

I wouldn't recommend anyone spend 100+ dollars on Kandel at this point, considering the new edition is due to be out soon. I guess they just pushed it to early 2012, but still, the previous version is 10 years old now.

Squires, Berg, Bloom et al. (2008) Fundamental Neuroscience - is a pretty good one.

A nice quick read for an introductory "crash course" on neurotransmitter systems try out

Iversen et al. "Introduction to Neuropsychopharmacology". OR

Cooper et al "Biochemical Basis of Neuropharmacology".

Those are probably my three favorite books that I read as an undergrad.

this book is great, I rarely bought textbooks but I was impressed with this one when I was checking it out for a class. Be warned, it goes into great detail and assumes a certain level of familiarity with the subject. Almost all of the 1-star reviews seem to be from people in intro to neurosomething courses, which this is certainly inappropriate for. For example, one of them finds this description troubling:

>At the systems level, emphasis is on the spatially distributed sensors and effectors that integrate the body's response to environmental challenges."

while I feel that it is wonderful, and not because it is wordy. I've spent the past 4 years taking neuro courses as much as I can, though. I'd say wait on the investment (60 dollars is a fair amount of weed), and check it out at a college library to see if you like it.