Handbook of Neurochemistry and Molecular Neurobiology: Neurotransmitter Systems

The brain is the organ that collects information from the environment, processes and stores the information, and generates behavior as and when needed. In essence, the brain makes us who we are. For this reason, understanding the biology of brain function is a great challenge and a major goal of modern science. The brain is one of the last great frontiers in science, and the unraveling of its mysteries is comparable in complexity to efforts in space exploration. A fundamental goal of neuroscience is to understand how neurons generate behavior and the pathophysiology of different mental and neurological diseases. This requires, among other things, information about where these neurons are located, how they are connected, and how they communicate with each other in various physiological and pathophysiological conditions. Our aim is to describe recent discoveries about the basic operations of the brain and to provide an introduction to the adaptations for specific types of information processing.