人脑是我们已知世界中最为复杂的一个物体。尽管我们对于脑的认识还远远不够，但是研究组成神经系统的神经元和胶质细胞产生感觉、行为和高级精神活动的方式已经成为科学研究中成果最丰硕的领域。脑的构成是一系列发育阶段的整合体，由最初少量胚胎细胞成为神经前体细胞开始，到接近行为出现为止，这就是本书所涵盖的内容。本书内容广泛，以一些著名的实验和观察为例，全面介绍了神经系统发育的基本原理。书中内容是按照个体发生的顺序排列的，从神经原基的诱导发生，一直到行为的产生。作为大学教材，本书涵盖了所有主要的内容，包括神经系统的生长模式、神经元决定、轴突导向及对象、神经元凋亡、突触形成及可塑性等内容。第二版新增的内容介绍了该领域的最新进展，比如模式生物的研究、分子及遗传技术的应用，以及新的成像技术的引入等等。本书的目的就是为高年级学生和有一些生物学背景的研究者提供一个关于神经发育过程的纲要，这与广泛的文献综述在目的上是完全不同的。本书插图丰富，文字简洁，非常适合第一次接触该领域的学生参考。本书还配有光盘，内容为全书精美彩图。

Covering the entire 20th century, this text traces the roots of conceptual art to movements such as Dada, explaining its importance in the 1960s and 1970s and showing that it is still alive today. In 1917 Marcel Duchamp signed the name R. Mutt on a urinal and placed it in a gallery. Even the most strident modernists refused to accept this object as a work of art, however, Duchamp stuck to his guns, claiming that he had chosen the urinal as an art object so it must be art. Such arguments over the nature of art still continue today. Tony Godfrey sees the archetypal work of Conceptual Art as a question and a proposition joined together: "What is Art? This could be Art." This text seeks to demystify the subject by placing the art in its social and political context.