Genes, Brain Function, and Behavior
What Genes Do, How They Malfunction, and Ways to Repair Damage

A guide to genes in the nervous system and the functions they play in the brain and in behavior

Douglas Wahlsten (Author)

9780128128329, Elsevier Science

Paperback, published 19 March 2019

299 pages
27.6 x 21.5 x 2 cm, 0.79 kg

Genes, Brain Function, and Behavior offers a concise description of the nervous system that processes sensory input and initiates motor movements. It reviews how behaviors are defined and measured, and how experts decide when a behavior is perturbed and in need of treatment. Behavioral disorders that are clearly related to a defect in a specific gene are reviewed, and the challenges of understanding complex traits such as intelligence, autism and schizophrenia that involve numerous genes and environmental factors are explored. New methods of altering genes offer hope for treating or even preventing difficulties that arise in our genes. This book explains what genes are, what they do in the nervous system, and how this impacts both brain function and behavior.

1. Levels of explanation2. Genes3. Gene expression4. Nervous system5. Brain development6. Behavior7. Single gene transmission and expression8. Phenylketonuria – recessive expression9. Huntington disease – dominant expression10. Androgen insensitivity syndrome – X-linked transmission 11. Leber’s optic neuritis – mitochondrial transmission12. Down syndrome – trisomy 2113. XYY male14. Complex traits15. Intelligence16. Autism spectrum disorder17. Schizophrenia18. Sex and gender19. Race20. Applications and ethics; dignity and human rights

Subject Areas: Neurosciences [PSAN]