Now in a revised and expanded second edition, this authoritative work synthesizes the rapidly growing knowledge base on the human frontal lobes and their central role in behavior, cognition, health, and disease. Leading contributors address neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, and normal neuropsychological functioning, and describe the nature and consequences of frontal lobe dysfunction in specific neurological and psychiatric conditions. Second edition features include a new section on structural and functional neuroimaging and substantially expanded coverage of frontotemporal dementia and related disorders. Other new topics include self-consciousness, competence, and personality; new testing approaches; bipolar disorder; and adult-onset genetic disorders of the frontal lobes. The book is illustrated with nearly 100 figures.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 1 review)

The Penetration of the Silent Terra Incognita

This very satisfying book "The Human Frontal Lobes, Second Edition: Functions and Disorders (Science and Practice of Neuropsychology Series)" edited by Bruce L. Miller and Jeffrey L. Cummings with 70 contributors, is also comprehensive and authoritative and distills the knowledge and research on the frontal lobes for the past 8 years. This study of the frontal lobes is further evidence that there is a paradigm shift occuring in psychiatry towards brain based and medical.

This second edition published in 2007, has 646 pages with 39 chapters grouped into 7 parts: The 7 parts are:

I Overview of the Frontal Lobes
11 Anatomy
III Neurochemistry
IV Functional and Structural Imaging Approaches
V Neuropsychological Functions
VI Neurological Disease
VII Psychiatric Diseases

This book penetrates to the core of the frontal lobes and would if used deepen psychiatric, neurology and graduate neuropsychology residency training.

The book is technical but starts gently with the frontal lobe structured into three divisions: the orbitofrontal which modulates social control, the cingulate which relates to goal directed behavior, and the dorsolateral that underpins neuropsychological functions. And from this it prismatically expands into the excutive functions, personality changes, language, emotion, thought, memory, and awareness. Then what can happen when there is loss of frontal lobe function such as in schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or in frontotemporal dementia just to give a few examples. There is a plethora of discussions on the architectonics, functional asymmetries, frontal-subcortical circuits, evolution, serotonin, acetylcholine, and the dopamine neurotransmitters, structural imaging, all of which interrelate to the frontal lobes.

It seems that Hippocrates presaged the essence of this book in 400 B.C.

"It ought to be generally known that the source of our pleasure, merriment, laughter, and amazement, as of our grief, pain, anxiety, and tears is none other than the brain. It is specially the organ which enables us to think, see and hear, and to distinguish the ugly and the beautiful, the bad and the good, pleasant and unpleasant. Sometimes we judge according to the perceptions of expediency. It is the brain too which is the seat of madness and delirium, of the fears and frights which assail us as, often by night but sometimes even by day, it is there where lies the cause of insomnia and sleep walking, of thoughts that will not come, forgotten duties, and eccentricities. All such things result from an unhealthy condition of the brain."

I don't think there is anything to add.

May 23, 2008

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