Book excerpt: Changing Concepts of the Nervous System, presents the proceedings of the First Institute of Neurological Sciences Symposium in Neurobiology, held at the University of Pennsylvania in October 1980. The book is divided into four parts consisting of mini symposia on different aspects of the neurosciences. The first mini symposia discuss the anatomical, physiological, developmental, and behavioral plasticity of the nervous system. The second mini symposia cover the changing concepts of the central visual system. The idea of the biological basis of the concept of motivation and its behavioral manifestations from both theoretical and experimental aspects is examined in the third mini symposia. The final mini symposia tackle the four aspects of studies on memory: amnesia (consolidation and retrieval), the role of catecholamines, the role of proteins, and the role of peptides. Anatomists, neurobiologists, neuroscientists, and students and researchers in the field of neuroscience will find the book invaluable.