Book1988
Eye, Brain, and Vision
David H. Hubel
Walks a general reader through how the visual system builds edges, motion and depth from raw retinal input, using the author's own Nobel-winning experiments as the throughline.
PaidEntry
Life & Health Sciences
Neuroscience
The organ that produces mind — studied from ion channels up to consciousness.
10 fields · 98 topics · 156 curated works
Fields within Neuroscience
Cellular & Molecular Neuroscience
11Neurons as electrical and chemical devices.
Foundations & Overviews · Neuronal Structure · Membrane Potentials · Action Potentials · Ion Channels
Neuroanatomy
10The wiring diagram, at the level we currently have it.
Foundations & Overviews · Cortical Organisation · Subcortical Structures · Basal Ganglia · Limbic System
Systems Neuroscience
10Circuits that compute something identifiable.
Foundations & Overviews · Sensory Coding · Visual System · Auditory System · Somatosensory System
Cognitive Neuroscience
10Mapping mental functions onto neural substrates.
Foundations & Overviews · Attention · Working Memory · Long-Term Memory Systems · Language & the Brain
Computational Neuroscience
10Modelling the brain as an information-processing system.
Foundations & Overviews · Neuron Models · Network Models · Neural Coding Theory · Learning Rules
Behavioural & Affective Neuroscience
9Motivation, reward and emotion at the circuit level.
Foundations & Overviews · Reward Systems · Dopamine & Motivation · Stress Response · Fear & the Amygdala
Developmental & Plastic Brain
8How brains build and rebuild themselves.
Foundations & Overviews · Neurogenesis · Axon Guidance · Critical Periods · Experience-Dependent Plasticity
Sleep & Consciousness
10The states the brain moves between, and the hard problem underneath.
Foundations & Overviews · Sleep Architecture · Circadian Regulation of Sleep · Dreaming · Sleep Deprivation Effects
Neuroimaging & Methods
10The instruments — and their well-documented limitations.
Foundations & Overviews · fMRI · EEG & MEG · PET Imaging · Electrophysiology
Clinical & Applied Neuroscience
10What goes wrong in the nervous system and what can be done — degeneration, pain, neuropharmacology and rehabilitation.
Foundations & Overviews · Neurodegenerative Disease · Neurodevelopmental Disorders · Neuropsychiatric Disorders · Epilepsy Mechanisms
Reading in Neuroscience
156A way in
Start here
No prior grounding assumed.
Eye, Brain, and Vision
David H. Hubel · 1988
Walks a general reader through how the visual system builds edges, motion and depth from raw retinal input, using the author's own Nobel-winning…
+14 more at this level
Then
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
The Structure and Connexions of Neurons
Santiago Ramón y Cajal · 1906
Cajal's Nobel lecture lays out the neuron doctrine from his own histological work, describing neurons as discrete, polarised cells rather than a…
+44 more at this level
Go deeper
Primary sources and full treatments.
The Integrative Action of the Nervous System
Charles Sherrington · 1906
Argues the nervous system's basic unit of function is the reflex arc, and builds an account of integration in which reflexes combine, inhibit and…
+95 more at this level
12 of 156 works
Book1997
Neuroscience
Dale Purves et al.
Introduces the nervous system through converging evidence from anatomy, physiology and behaviour rather than any one method, aimed at readers new to the field.
PaidEntry
Book1998
Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind
Ramachandran & Blakeslee
Uses unusual neurological cases, especially phantom limb pain, to argue that the brain actively constructs the body it perceives rather than passively reporting sensation from it.
Book1999
Consciousness
Allan Hobson
Presents waking consciousness, sleep and dreaming as different global states of the same brain, distinguished by which neuromodulatory systems are active.
PaidEntry
Book2002
Consciousness: A User's Guide
Adam Zeman
Surveys what neurology's loss-of-consciousness cases - coma, seizure, sleep, anaesthesia - reveal about what consciousness requires from the brain.
PaidEntry
Paper2003
Simple Model of Spiking Neurons
Eugene Izhikevich
Presents a two-equation neuron model that reproduces the firing patterns of real cortical neurons at a fraction of the computational cost of a full biophysical model.
link failing as of 17 Sept 2026Book2005
The Ethical Brain: The Science of Our Moral Dilemmas
Michael S. Gazzaniga
Argues that many bioethical questions raised by neuroscience — free will, moral responsibility, brain death — are old philosophical problems that neuroscience reframes rather than solves for the first time.
Talk2010
The Linguistic Genius of Babies
Patricia Kuhl
Argues infants use statistical learning to tune their perception to their native language's sounds within the first year, and that this window narrows well before a child ever speaks.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Talk2011
Trust, Morality — and Oxytocin?
Paul Zak
Argues from his own experiments that the hormone oxytocin causally increases trust and generosity between strangers, proposing it as a biological basis for morality; several of the underlying oxytocin-trust findings have since failed to replicate.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Book2014
Analyzing Neural Time Series Data: Theory and Practice
Michael X. Cohen
Teaches the statistical and signal-processing methods for extracting time-frequency information from EEG and MEG data, aimed at researchers with no prior background in the maths.
Video2015
2-Minute Neuroscience: Action Potential
Marc Dingman (Neuroscientifically Challenged)
A short animated walkthrough of depolarisation, threshold and repolarisation aimed at a reader meeting the action potential for the first time.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Paper2015
Seizures and Epilepsy: An Overview for Neuroscientists
Stafstrom & Carmant
Introduces seizure and epilepsy classification, mechanisms and terminology for readers without a clinical neurology background.
link checked 17 Sept 2026