UAB scientist pens comprehensive textbook on diseases of the nervous system

A new comprehensive textbook on neurological diseases and conditions from the desk of a UAB neuroscientist will be available this spring.

somtheimer book smallClick to enlargeHarald Sontheimer, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and director of the UAB Civitan International Research Center, has written a comprehensive college-level textbook covering 40 diseases of the nervous system, from stroke to brain tumor.

Sontheimer says the book provides an introductory tutorial for students, scholars, researchers and medical professionals interested in current understanding and treatment of diseases of the nervous system, from foundational science to the best treatment protocols.

“I have been teaching a class with the same title as the book, “Diseases of the Nervous System,” for more than a decade, and students kept asking whether there was a book they could use to accompany the class,” Sontheimer said. “While there were excellent neurology textbooks, none were suitable for college or graduate students, and even for medical students the neurology textbooks were too specialized.”

Sontheimer wrote the book using college students at a Memphis-area college as a focus group while teaching there during a sabbatical from UAB. The book provides comprehensive introductions to stroke, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, head and spinal cord trauma, multiple sclerosis, brain tumors, depression, schizophrenia, and many other diseases of the nervous system.

It is published by Academic Press and is now available online here.