Comparative Correlative Neuroanatomy of the Vertebrate Telencephalon

553 not be particularly helpful to the general physician but may be an interesting reference work to be available in the medical library. This book, 830 pages in all, is a collection of chapters on the telencephalon of various classes of vertebrates, written by different authors. It is divided into three parts. Part I covers the submammals with chapters on the telencephalon of fish, am-consists of two chapters, one dealing with the paraphysis cerebri in all five classes of vertebrates, and the other with the blood supply to vertebrate brains. Each chapter begins with a short introduction which usually deals briefly with the classification of the class of animals, their evolutionary or phylogenetic history, and sometimes comments on special adaptations or features of ecology, and, more important , the principal characteristics of the telencephalon of the group. As the only summary statements for each chapter, these sections are useful for comparison of the different groups of vertebrates. The success of the book lies in providing the reader with a generally good description of the cytoarchitectonics, fiber pathways, and connections of the telencephalon of a variety of vertebrate types. The chapters are well organized and extensively illustrated. The descriptions are, however, better for some groups than others. The chapters on the fish, amphibia, and reptiles are based largely on early anatomical descriptions of brain organization which were done without the benefit of modern neuroanatomical techniques. In the bibliographies of these chapters only a sprinkling of references are dated in the 1970s. The discussion of the avian telencephalon is refreshingly up to date, and sensitive to the recent exciting findings regarding its organization and function, such as sexual dimorphism and lateralization. The chapters on the mammals (including human) are good, but cover the literature in general only up to 1977. A notable omission in these discussions is any consideration of neurochemical systems in the mammalian telencephalon. The book suffers badly from the lack of an introductory or even concluding chapter that considers telencephalic organization and its phylogenetic elaboration in general terms, so as to orient the non-specialist reader interested in exploring this subject. The absence of an attempt to resolve some of the confusion in telencephalic terminology is also regrettable. Both of these contribute to the book's falling short of its expected aim of being a "comparative correlative" treatise. The work as it stands would be most useful to those looking for …