Neuroscience For Kids

books, articles, audio for high school students

On-line Books, Magazine Articles and "Real Audio"

Brain Briefings - Short explanations of various topics from the Society for Neuroscience.
Dana Foundation Publication Archive
Brainwork
Brain Connections
Progress Report
Radio and Television Transcripts
The Brain in the News

Discover Magazine

National Public Radio "RealAudio" - Talk of the Nation/Science Friday

Swaying Of Hammock Lulls Brain Into Deeper Sleep - June 24th, 2011
Gene Mutations Offer Clues On The Autistic Brain - June 10th, 2011
Are Math Skills Built In To The Human Brain? - May 27th, 2011
Sleep-Deprived Rats Take "Brain Naps" - April 29th, 2011
Sifting Genes For Clues To Alzheimer's - April 8th, 2011
Getting a Sense of How We Taste Sweetness - March 11th, 2011
TV And Smartphones May Hamper A Good Night's Sleep - March 11th, 2011
Tracing Signals In The Brain - February 25th, 2011
Looking At What The Eye Sees - February 25th, 2011
Creating The Illusion Of A Different Body - February 25th, 2011
Walking Your Way To A Bigger Brain - February 4th, 2011
Can Dogs Smell Cancer? - February 4th, 2011
Oliver Sacks and the Minds Eye - December 3, 2010
Holiday Tastes and Smells - November 26, 2010
Antonio Damasio: Self Comes to Mind - November 12, 2010
Concussions and Athletes - November 5, 2010
Meditation and the Brain - August 20, 2010
Building New Neurons - July 9, 2010
Amygdaloids July 9, 2010
The Middle Aged Brain - June 11, 2010
MRIs and the Law - May 14, 2010
Laughter and Health - April 30, 2010
From Thought to Movement - March 5, 2010
Studying Epilepsy in Sea Lions - February 19, 2010
Rewiring the Brain with Stem Cells - January 22, 2010
Eric Kandel - January 8, 2010
Caffeine and Alcohol - January 1, 2010
The Psychology of Prices - January 1, 2010
Erasing Fear Memories - December 11, 2009
Two Personalities, One Brain? - November 13, 2009
Concussions - November 6, 2009
Gene Therapy and Blindness - October 30, 2009
Now Hear This - October 23, 2009
ADHD and the Brain's Reward System - September 11, 2009
The Science of Decision-Making - July 24, 2009
Snacks, Overeating, and Sensory Science - July 10, 2009
Tickling Gorillas and the Evolution of Laughter - June 5, 2009
How We Hear - May 29, 2009
Night Vision and DNA - April 17, 2009
Thinning Brain May Point to Depression - March 27th, 2009
Turning Down Your Ears - January 23, 2009
Fish and Mercury - January 16, 2009
HM, Amnesia, and Memory - December 12th, 2008
Smiling In Groups - December 5th, 2008
Music and Cardiovascular Health - November 14th, 2008
How Do Flies Get Away

- August 29, 2008

Alzheimer's Research - August 1, 2008
Tracking Accidental Drug Deaths - August 1, 2008

Treating Depression - July 25, 2008
Genetics and ADHD - July 11, 2008
The Sweet Smell of Science - June 27, 2008
New Research into Stroke and the Brain - June 27, 2008
Stroke of Insight - June 27, 2008
Coffee Smell Wakes Up Genes - June 20, 2008
Tune Deafness and the Brain - June 13, 2008
The Circadian Advantage - June 13, 2008
Monkey's Thoughts Move Robot Arm - May 30, 2008
Circadian Clock Sets at Lunchtime - May 23, 2008
Looking Inside the Human Brain - May 2, 2008
Gene Therapy for Blindness - May 2, 2008
The Importance of Sleep - April 11, 2008
What Parents Should Know about Autism - March 11, 2008
This is Your Brain on Lies - March 6, 2008
What Makes Stem Cells Stem Cells? - February 22, 2008
Predicting Psychotic Illness in Teens - January 11, 2008
The Body Has a Mind of Its Own - December 21, 2007
Re-Wiring the Sense of Touch - November 30, 2007
Politics and the Brain - November 16, 2007
Oliver Sacks - Musicophilia - November 9, 2007
Building a Brainbow - November 2, 2007
Towards a Blood Test for Alzheimer's - October 19, 2007
Steven Pinker - September 14, 2007
Spinal Cord Injuries - September 14, 2007
Placebo Effect - August 3, 2007
Depression Medication - July 27, 2007
H.M.'s Brain and the History of Memory - February 24, 2007
Autism Research Update - February 23, 2007
Train Your Brain - February 2, 2007
Creativity - December 15, 2006
The Family that Couldn't Sleep - November 17, 2006
Marijuana and Alzheimer's - October 20, 2006
Brain-controlled Devices - July 14, 2006
Parkinson's Reversal - June 23, 2006
Addiction - June 16, 2006
Psychiatric Drugs - June 9, 2006
Mad Cow Disease Update - June 16, 2006
Freud's Drawings from Brain to Mind / Neurobiology of Dread - May 5, 2006
Mercury and Fish - April 14, 2006
Sleep and Teens - March 31, 2006
Mad Cow Disease - March 17, 2006
Exercise and Dementia - January 27, 2006
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff: Stress - December 2, 2005
Gender Differences in Learning and Cognition - December 2, 2005
Sleep On It - November 4, 2005
Taste Buds - July 22, 2005
Stem Cell Spinal Cord Treatment - May 13, 2005
Persistent Vegetative State - March 25, 2005
Treating Depression - February 11, 2005
Making False Memories - February 4, 2005
Stem Cells and Parkinson's - January 7, 2005
Sensing Fear - December 17, 2004
Mind Wide Open - November 26, 2004
Making Memories - September 24, 2004
Robert Sapolsky and Stress - September 10, 2004
Monkey Brains and Prostethics - July 9, 2004
Mad Cow Disease Update / Eric Kandel - July 2, 2004
Alzheimer's Update - July 2, 2004
Mental Illness in Children - June 25, 2004
Leptin and the Brain - April 2, 2004
Mind Wide Open - March 12, 2004
New Mad Cow Prion - February 20, 2004
Animal Communication - January 16, 2004
Mad Cow Disease Update - January 9, 2004
Depression - December 19, 2003
Stem Cells - November 7, 2003
Music and the Brain - May 9, 2003
Genetics and Behavior - May 2, 2003
Gulf War Illnesses - March 14, 2003
Autism - January 24, 2003
Spinal Cord Recovery - December 13, 2002
Bipolar Disorder in Children - October 11, 2002
Alzheimer's Disease - August 16, 2002
Stem Cells - June 21, 2002
Synaptic Self - March 29, 2002
Chronobiology - December 2001
Sport Psychology - August 2000
Alzheimer's Disease - July 2000
Alzheimer's Disease Update - July 2001
Mad Cow Disease - May 2000
Mad Cow Disease - January 2001
Smell - March 2000
Medicating Preschoolers/ADHD - March 2000
Monkey Math? - January 2000

Online Newshour

Other

Fires of Pain - Burn Pain and Its Treatment
Manhattan Project of the Mind - An article focusing on brain imaging research.
The Harvard Brain - from Harvard Undergraduate Society for Neuroscience
Dr. William H. Calvin - a professor at the Univ. of Washington has many chapters from his books and magazine articles about the nervous system here on his site, for example, The Cerebral Code, Conversations with Neil's Brain, The Emergence of Intelligence, How Brains Think: Evolving Intelligence, Then and Now, The Ascent of Mind, The Cerebral Symphony and The Throwing Madonna

PBS Specials

Why Files

Can Birds Learn in their Sleep?
Brains in Your Gut?
Brain Cancer
Chemical Reaction - Chemical Catastrophes
Emotions and Health
Fatigue and Human Error
Mad Cow Disease
Minding the Body - Can emotions affect health?
Repairing the Spinal Cord
Science of Love
Sounds of Language
Spinal Cord Injury and Recovery
Mad Cow Disease
Minding the Body
Your Brain on Nicotine

Overviews of the Nervous System

Faith Hickman Brynie, 101 Questions Your Brain Has Asked Itself But Couldn't Answer Until Now, Millbrook Press, Brookfield, 1998, 176 pages.
Rita Carter, Mapping the Mind, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1998, 224 pages.
Roberta Conlan (editor), States of Mind: New Discoveries About How Our Brains Make Us Who We Are, New York, Dana Press, 1999, 214 pages.
Joel Davis, Mapping the Mind. The Secrets of the Human Brain and How It Works, Birch Lane Press, Secaucus, 1997, 289 pages.
Stanislas Dehaene, The Number Sense. How the Mind Creates Mathematics, Oxford University Press, 1997, 274 pages.
Marian C. Diamond, Arnold B. Scheibel, Lawrence M. Elson, The Human Brain Coloring Book, Barnes and Noble Books, New York, 1985, 301 pages.
Susan A. Greenfield, The Human Brain, BasicBooks, New York, 1997, 160 pages.
Susan A. Greenfield, The Human Mind Explained, Henry Holt and Co., New York, 1996, 192 pages. An EXCELLENT guide to the brain with plenty of pictures.
Robert D. Griffin, The Biology Coloring Book, Harper Collins, New York, 1986, 256 pages.
Wynn Kapit and Lawrence M. Elson, The Anatomy Coloring Book, Harper Collins, New York, 1993, 352 pages.
Harold L. Klawans, Why Michael Couldn't Hit, and Other Tales of the Neurology of Sports, W.H. Freeman, New York, 1996, 308 pages.
Kenneth A. Klivington, The Science of the Mind, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1989, 239 pages.
Ronald Kotulak, Inside the Brain, Andrews and McMeel, Kansas City, 1996.
Elaine N. Marieb, The A&P Coloring Workbook, A Complete Study Guide, 3rd edition, Benjamin/Cummings.
John McCrone, The Ape That Spoke. Language and the Evolution of the Human Mind, William Morrow and Company, New York, 1991, 288 pages.
D. Michael McKeough, Coloring Review of Neuroscience, 2nd edition, Little, Brain and Co., 1995.
Paul Nordstrom August, The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Drugs, Series 2, Brain Function, Chelsea House Publ., New York, 1988, 123 pages.
Tabitha M. Powledge, Your Brain: How You Got It and How it Works, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1994, 210 pages.
J. Lawrence Pool, Nature's Masterpiece. The Brain and How it Works, Walker and Co., New York, 1987, 144 pages.
Brain Briefings - A great resource with short discussion of topics including Epilepsy and GABA, The Roots of ALS, Alzheimer's Abnormalities, The Retinoblastoma Gene, Birth Defects, Multiple Sclerosis, The Prefrontal Cortex and Schizophrenia, Huntington's Disease Genetics, Parkinson's and Dopamine, The Senses, Sleep, Brain Imaging, Development, Brain Mechanisms (Serotonin and Judgment, The Brain's Stash, Cell Suicide, Oxidative Stress and Brain Disorders, The Opiate Receptor, Neurotrophic Factors, NMDA Receptor Blockers, Biological Clocks)
Brain Facts. A Primer on the Brain and Nervous System, Society for Neuroscience, Washington, D.C., 2008
V. S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee, Phantoms in the Brain : Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind, William Morrow and Company, New York, 1998, 320 pages.
Jean Stine and Camden Benares, It's All in Your Head, Prentice Hall, New York, 1994, 248 pages.
Time/Life Books, How Things Work - The Brain, Time/Life Books, Alexandria, 1990.
Carol Turkington, The Brain Encyclopedia, Facts on File, Inc., New York, 1995, 316 pages.

Specific Areas of the Nervous System

John Downer, Supersense. Perception in the Animal World, Holt and Co., New York, 1988, 160 pages.
Jillyn Smith, Senses & Sensibilities, John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1989, 230 pages.
William H. Calvin and George A. Ojemann, Conversations with Neil's Brain: The Neural Nature of Thought and Language, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., New York, 1995, 352 pages.
William H. Calvin and George A. Ojemann, Inside the Brain, New American Library, New York, 1980, 226 pages.
Richard K. Cooley and C.H. Vanderwolf, The Sheep Brain; A basic guide, A.J. Kirby, Co., London, Ontario, Canada, 1979, 34 pages.
Stephen J. DeArmond, Madeline M. Fusco and Maynard M. Dewey, Structure of the Human Brain. A Photographic Atlas, Oxford University Press, New York, 1976, 186 pages.
Eric R. Kandel, James H. Schwartz and Thomas M. Jessel, Principles of Neural Science, Elsevier, New York, 1991, 1135 pages. (This textbook is a comprehensive overview of the whole field of neuroscience and is used in many university graduate and undergraduate courses)
M.B. Macmillan, A wonderful journey through skull and brains: the travels of Mr. Gage's tamping iron, Brain and Cognition, vol. 5, pp. 67-107, 1986. (History and analysis of the brain injury sustained by Mr. Phineas Gage)
Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden, Ballantine Books, New York, 1977, 271 pages.

Neuroscience Videos for Students and Teachers

Decade of the Brain Tapes
Films for the Humanities & Sciences - several videos about the senses and brain, but they tend to be expensive.

For more on-line and off-line books and magazine articles, see the Middle School Books Page and the Elementary School Books Page.