ABSTRACT
We are at an exciting time as students of neurobiology, and it is hope that many readers of this book will be at the forefront of groundbreaking discoveries. As we begin this journey, let's discuss one of the questions we raised regarding the contributions of genes and environment to our brain function and behavior. We use the ability of barn owls to adjust their auditory maps to changes in their vision to illustrate this capacity. This chapter provides an overview of the nervous system and introducing how key historical discoveries helped build the conceptual framework of modern neuroscience. After systematically applying the Golgi stain to study tissues in many parts of the nervous systems of many organisms, ranging from insects to humans, and at many developmental stages, Ramon y Cajal concluded that individual neurons are embryologically, structurally, and functionally independent units of the nervous system.
