Master Dog Trainer Reading Series: Principles of Neural Science

Years ago, I purchased this excellent textbook on the functions of the brain. I was seeking to understand the overall architecture of the brain and how the individual parts worked, and then an overview of the entire brain. It's not an easy read: 1,696 pages. 

I found several gold nuggets in this book. But what I got out of it was beyond what, maybe, the authors intended. One gold nugget: with all the research that has been done on the brain, the top scientists in the world admit they really don't understand it. 

So, if they don't understand the brain, shouldn't there be a bit more humility from these online dog training gurus who pretend to understand how dogs think? The latest are these conversations on how they claim their knowledge of how the brain processes reward and punishment. You'll hear about "dopamine", for example. Do you really think these people know anything meaningful about dopamine? No. Or they talk about the biology of stress, SSRI's, or aggression, etc. Do they know the biology of those things? Have they even read the book I'm recommending, by the top experts on the brain? Nope. It's all a marketing gimmick to entice you to spend money on their goofy programs. 

There were other gold nuggets in this textbook, but I'll leave that for you to discover. I'm not the type to read the last chapter of a book instead of reading it from the first page to the last. So, I won't spoil it for you. If you are serious about understanding dog behavior, then you need to study biology. This book should be in your library.

Principles of Neural Science

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