Textbook of Neuroscience for Psychiatrists: From Neural Circuits to Clinical Practice

Are you prescribing by algorithm — or by mechanism? Every day, psychiatrists make treatment decisions that are implicitly neurobiological. Choosing an SSRI assumes serotonergic dysfunction. Augmenting with aripiprazole assumes dopaminergic modulation will help. Referring for TMS assumes a specific prefrontal circuit is underactive. Yet most clinicians cannot articulate the neuroscience behind these decisions — because no single textbook has made that neuroscience accessible, comprehensive, and clinically actionable.

Until now.

Textbook of Neuroscience for Psychiatrists: From Neural Circuits to Clinical Practice is the first textbook that covers the full landscape of modern psychiatric neuroscience in one volume — from foundational neuroanatomy through cutting-edge frontiers that no competitor addresses. Dedicated chapters on psychedelic-assisted therapy, neuroimmunology, the gut-brain axis, computational psychiatry, and AI sit alongside the essential foundations of circuits, neurotransmitters, neuroimaging, genetics, and brain development.

But this is not a neuroscience reference that sits on a shelf. It is a clinical tool designed to change how you think at the bedside.

Pharmacology is organized by neural circuit target, not drug class — teaching you to ask Which mechanism should I address? rather than Which SSRI is next on the algorithm? Every chapter opens with a realistic clinical vignette and closes by revisiting that case with a neuroscience-informed formulation that transforms the treatment plan. The receptor audit framework teaches you to map any medication regimen at the receptor level — predicting side effects, identifying irrational duplications, and designing streamlined combinations grounded in pharmacological logic.

The seven-dimension formulation model integrates circuit dysfunction, molecular mechanisms, developmental history, inflammatory markers, circadian pathology, metabolic contributors, and pharmacogenomic context into a single actionable framework — using tools available in any clinical setting today. Not someday. Now.

24 chapters. 5 parts. 53 figures. 250+ board-aligned self-assessment questions. Written for psychiatry residents building their neuroscience foundation, practicing psychiatrists updating their knowledge, nurse practitioners and psychologists seeking biological depth, and medical students discovering the most scientifically exciting specialty in medicine.

The patient who has failed four antidepressants may have an inflammatory depression that was never assessed. The first-episode psychosis patient may have autoimmune encephalitis that a single FLAIR sequence could reveal. The treatment-resistant OCD patient may need glutamatergic augmentation that serotonergic monotherapy cannot provide. The bipolar patient may have mitochondrial dysfunction addressable through metabolic intervention.

You cannot target what you do not understand.

The textbook I wish I had written. — From the Foreword by Professor Helena Vasquez, M.D., Ph.D.

The neuroscience revolution in psychiatry is not coming. It is here. This book equips you to practice within it.