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by toddml 6437 days ago
My undergrad neuroscience textbook was the classic "Principles Of Neural Science" by Kandell, Schwartz, and Jessell.

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Neural-Science-Eric-Kandel/...

If you're looking for something a bit more digestable, you could try "Biological Psychology: An Introduction to Behavioral, Cognitive, and Clinical Neuroscience", which is more appropriate for a survey level (100, 1000, depending on your school) course.

http://www.amazon.com/Biological-Psychology-Introduction-Beh...

2 comments

Upvote for Kandell, not BioPsych. The latter just emphasizes the wrong things and too broadly.
What about MITECS? [1] Is it outdated?

Eliezer Yudkowsky recommended it[2]. But I'm not sure if he still would.

I know you work at MIT, what do you use?

[1] http://www.amazon.com/MIT-Encyclopedia-Cognitive-Sciences-MI...

[2] http://sl4.org/wiki/MITECS

That's just a reference volume. It's fine for what it is, but really as a launching off point for specific topics. And reading it cover to cover would get old, fast.
I'd second principles of neural science, though that's with the expectation that the reader has the appropriate background in basic chemistry, biology, and maybe anatomy. Out of the dozens of books I have on neurosci, that's probably the single most comprehensive.