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portions of the book. Hereafter, basic definitions are stated (eg, commissural,
association, heterotopic projections, striae), and the reader is taken from there to
the major considerations of the pertinent anatomy. This is important material for
any neuroradiologist, but in particular for those who are engaged in functional MR
(activation studies). The description of the physiological nature of each of the tracts
is precise and particularly well illustrated.
The bigger concept (and I can say the same for the deep gray matter chapter) is
that the material takes the reader beyond simply what is needed to understand the
imaging we see daily. It can serve to satisfy ones deeper curiosity about what the
anatomy means in terms of function. For example, is it important that we know the
relationship of the internal capsule to the deep gray matter nuclei of non-human
animals? Certainly not; but it is interesting, surely, yes. This small example (there
are many others of course) speaks to the intellectual depths of the book and the
efforts put into its construction.
It is often of value to compare between textbooks and determine how differently (or
perhaps similarly) a given subject is dealt with. Using Parkinson disease as an
example, one has to go online to retrieve the information from this books website
because it does not appear in the print version. Once there, the reader can read a
description of the disease and its imaging, which, unfortunately, concentrates to a
great degree on PET/SPECT. In this respect, and for this particular disease, Osborns
Brain and Diagnostic Imaging would be of greater value and interest. A similar
observation is made relative to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, where the imaging is less
robust and shows fewer features than in the aforementioned books. But in many
other subjects, particularly in terms of detailed anatomy and the depths of
education in connectivity and neurophysiologic considerations, the book under
review here is marvelous. Like any huge subject, such as brain imaging, different
resources have different strengths.
In this reviewers opinion, the text Imaging of the Brain is an extremely important
publication and should be part of every neuroradiologists library.