Louis Cozolino: The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Social Brain. New York:  W. W. Norton, 2006. ISBN: 978-0393704549,  272 pp, £25.

Recognizing that neuroscience has historically emerged from studying the brain in an asocial context, The Neuroscience of Human Relationships criss-crosses the terrain from neurons to neighborhoods in an effort to place the “social synapse” at center stage. As a psychotherapist with a command of the neuroscientific literature, Louis Cozolino offers a comprehensive introduction to how our brains shape each other's. Just as a single neuron does not exist in isolation, we cannot discuss brain development without interpersonal context—an argument that is flanked by both scientific and clinical examples throughout the book.

Cozolino makes clear from the outset that he is addressing those who don't wander through their days thinking about brain function. His book, with its clear and casual prose, interweaves a wide spectrum of neuroscience with psychotherapeutic insight. Each chapter begins by reviewing a topic from a neurobiological perspective and closes with a relevant clinical encounter. This refreshing structure draws the reader into a soothing oscillation of pedagogy and narrative, thereby offering a memorable demonstration of the neurobiological concepts.

For those of us who do in fact wander about during our days thinking about brain function, Cozolino provides extensive citations (85 pages of references), as well as clearly structured tables and schematic figures. As a cognitive neuroscientist, I found the book to be an engaging review of