High Yield Neuroanatomy

[Dr. Don]

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hello all, I was reading alot of posts where this book is highly recommended for step 1. I'm an incoming 1st year student and although I'm not really thinking about purchasing books for the boards, I just wanted to see what SDN'ers opinions where on the best books.

I cruised by a local school bookstore and found myself in the study aids section and I came across HY neuroanatomy...and it was so THIN!!! so I asked myself could this really be the book that many people are saying it's the best for neuroanatomy, so good that some people say IT'S THE ONLY THING YOU NEED TO DO WELL IN NEUROANATOMY!!??? Any advice on this would be appreciated, thank you!

Dr. DOn

 

[DrMom]

High Yield Neuro wouldn't have been even close to being sufficient for the neuroanatomy class I took. It's good for board review, though.

BTW: moving to the allo forum...

 

[tega]

imho using HY neuro or any of the HY series is predicate on u already having a good grasp of the material. Its is definitely not sufficient to do well in ur neuro class?..but for boards purposes?.it should be fine . Though I would read selected chapters in BRS neuro?also. ....

 

[kreno]

High Yield Neuro is *NOT* a book you would use to learn the material. it's just NOT ENOUGH info. HOWEVER, once you are done with the course and have a good grasp of the subject, it is a GREAT resource to use as a review tool. It's also a good outline to use as you're studying in the course....

 

[BassDominator]

I agree. High yield neuro is definitely not meant for learning neuro the first time. Kandell and Schwartz, which a lot of schools use, isn't even fit for wiping your butt.... so don't waste your money on that. I highly recommend neuro made rediculously simple.

 

[IlianaSedai]

I ended up buying HY Neuro because it is really the best book by majority student consensus for the USMLE Step 1. However, it was not particularly useful during the neuroanatomy course because it IS thin and doesn't contain explanations. By the time you're reviewing for Step 1 you will already have the background and HY will be just the thing -- so I think it's very likely you'll buy it eventually. You will probably end up relying on a more dense text -- in our case, the class syllabus, but a textbook in more decent neuro classes at other schools.

Pay attention to the Nervous System chapter in BRS Physiology (which I didn't realize was there while actually taking the class, and upon discovering it while reviewing for Step 1 realized it would've made neuroanatomy sooo much easier had I paid attention to it). I would not recommend buying BRS Neuroanatomy by the same author as the HY Neuro book -- 400 pages too dense for Step 1 and a waste of $30 when I ended up buying HY anyway -- but the clinical correlations in that were very useful and better than HY's. Still, between BRS and a textbook, if you need something denser than HY you have to get something, so maybe BRS isn't too bad a choice for that.

 

[yeti00]

I was a neuroscience major undergrad, and used HY Neuro because I had 3 binders full of notes and not an ounce of understanding. It is clear, concise, and makes good sense out of a tricky, tricky subject. In other words, it works only after you've done a whole lot of slogging, but it makes it all come together.

 

[Green912]

As a general rule the BRS & HY books are best used about 2 days before the exam. By then you've been through the material a few times and the review books really help to pin down what's important.

 

[moo]

I loved this book. Although I have to echo the others when I say that it's probably not sufficient to pass your courses. I actually bought this book during our school's neuro block first year but never used it a lot. It was just too thin! I just studied off class syllabi and did fine on our exam. However, while studying for Step I, this book is a God-send. It's definitely the best book available for neuro, has some high yield MRIs/CTs and best of all in the preface, the author highlights the important points in each chapter, e.g., Know the blood supply of the thalamus, it's extremely high yield.

 

[Stinger86]

HY Neuro is not sufficient for coursework, but that's just because most of the neuroscience you get taught your first year is useless fluff. Once you finish your neuro course and are studying for the nbme shelf (and even later with the step), HY Neuro is incredible. Neuro questions on the neuro shelf and step 1 are very clinical, and everything you need to know is in this book.

 

[Deuce 007 MD]

For me it was the only book I used during the course along with lecture notes and I did fine. One SD above the average for the whole UCLA class, this maybe be due to the new curriculum cut out all the fluff.

 

[hans19]

Like I said, for those of you that can memorize an entire neuro text, knock yourselves out. That was NOT me. To quote the beloved Ron Popeil of Rotisserie fame- 'You gotta cut the fat.' You have to get over the urge to believe that if a book has MORE pages, it MUST be better.

I can not emphasize this enough, in med school LESS is MORE. Ideally you will study and remember everything, b/c everything is fair game on a test. But if you ever find yourself short on time before the test (like I did), you will score higher if you know the select 'high-yield' facts backwards and forwards vs to trying to memorize every friggin detail about everything (of course unless you have a photographic memory). Remember the law of diminishing returns!

Case in point:
HY neuro and BRS neuro were written by the same author. If you take a look for yourselves, you will see that both present the same material but HY neuro is more succint, has more pictures, has half as many pages to read (given a time constraint) and costs a lot less.

It would have been nice if someone had told me this early on, but I had to find out the hard way.

Good luck guys!
-Hans

PS. Not all the HY books are that great, but Neuro is awesome...

 

[Wahoo07]

HY Neuro is great, though I keep seeing things in it that contradict the things we learned in class, or at the very least, look different than usual. For example, the pupillary light pathway on p 94 of the 2nd ed. I don't think we learned anything about fibers crossing in the posterior commisure, we just learned that from the pretectum, fibers project to both EW nuclei, that is, bilaterally. In the diagram here, it looks sorta like that, but doesn't really work out that way. Am I just looking at it wrong, or what?

 

[Bevo]

I used this book a lot during my Neuroanatomy course here. Used it as my primary source (for reasons I dont want to get into ....too much bitching basically).

Dont use it to learn off of. I did and I dont think I have a really sound foundation in NS now.
Its pretty good for the nbme shelf, as is this 28? case studies in neuroscience book. As these books helped me get the highest grade of any of the shelf exams Ive taken thus far.

I think our required text was some textbook by Snell, but it was a waist of money to buy that book.

 

[Wahoo07]

Like some people, I also tried to learn neuro from HY, but after a few tries, I just couldn't do it. There's just not enough there. I liked using Manter and Gatz along with my notes. At the end of the year, HY was great to review. 🙂

And anyone know about my question above? 😎

 

[MedguyNYC]

There is an art to using HY and BRS during any given course in MS. I started using them from day one of MS and been using them ever since. don't attempt to use review books for learning material. Learn from your lectures and notes and hit the review books knowing exactly what your are looking for.

 

[omarsaleh66]

i studied HY neuroanatomy, Neuranatomy Made ridiculously Simple, and BRS neuroanatomy (for questions). These 3 books along w First Aid helped me get a good score in the class as well as the NBME. Some things that is tested on the NBME that isnt in these books is sleep, headaches, seizures, and microbiology(First AID) and things like that, but we learned that in school.

also I want to say that I used these books during the whole course, not just before the final exam. Also, I had Blumenfield Clinical Cases, which I opened once, but its good to have for a reference if u dont understand something in these review books.


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