ORGANOGENESIS, HISTOGENESIS (incl. tissue and organ culture, histochemistry) 



(see also 44,49,76,80,85,91,97) 



Treatises 



55. 



G.GOTTLIEB, ed. 1978. EARLY INFLUENCES 



Academic Press, New York, etc. Studies on the Developm. of Behavior and the 



Nervous System vol.4. XVIII, 356 pp., 39 figs., 12 tabs., author and subject 



indexes. $ 22.50, £ 14.60 



All contributors to this new volume of an important series are Americans. 

 All chapters are authoritative, well-organised reviews. The editor's thought- 

 ful section introductions and epilogue lend unity to the volume. An attempt 

 has been made to write at a sufficiently basic level, to define technical 

 terms, and to clarify the abstruse issues with which the field abounds. 



The chapters of most direct interest to developmental biologists (partic- 

 ularly teratologists) are the four in section 1 dealing with the effects of 

 drugs, radiation, hormones and stress on brain development and behaviour, 

 and the two in section 2 discussing nutritional influences. Section 3 has 

 three chapters on the influences of five kinds of sensory experience, of 

 sensory overload (auditory trauma) , and of environmental enrichment. 



Textbooks 



56. 



R.D.LUND. 1978. DEVELOPMENT AND PLASTICITY OF THE BRAIN, an introduction 

 Oxford Univ. Press, New York, etc. X,370 pp., 105 figs., 7 tabs., subject 

 index. $ 14.95 (cloth), $ 7.95 (paper), £ 4.95 (cloth) 



Contents (abridged): I. Introduction (2 chs.), II. Nerve cell biology (3), 

 III. Neural generation and migration (2) , IV. The development of neural 

 processes (4), V. The interaction between axons and target cells (3), VI. 

 The role of function in determining connections (1), VII. The adult brain 

 (2) , VIII. Summary 



This is the first basic textbook on a fascinating but notoriously difficult 

 subject: difficult to study and difficult to present to others. The book is 

 best characterised by quoting the first paragraph of the preface: 



"This book is largely concerned with the mechanisms involved in the de- 

 velopment and maintenance of predictable organization in the central ner- 

 vous system of vertebrates, particularly of mammals. Some experiments un- 

 dertaken on the peripheral nervous system are also described, since certain 

 principles derive from them which may also be relevant to central neural 

 problems. Emphasis is given throughout to the dynamic properties of nerve 

 cells, their interactions, their specificities of behavior, and the aberra- 

 tions which result from lesions, genetic variation and environmental fac- 

 tors. " 



The book is didactically very clear. A notable feature is its emphasis on 

 the need for critical assessment of data and scrupulousness in interpreta- 

 tion and extrapolation. Although I am not an expert in this area my distinct 

 impression is that the treatment is well balanced and does justice to most 

 of the multifarious views in which the field abounds, often ending in the 

 tentative conclusion that the truth may be somewhere midway between the ex- 

 tremes. 



The illustrations are for the most part simple but effective line drawings. 

 The bibliography numbers over 700 titles and is up to date until the begin- 

 ning of 1977, 



224 



