• 2008 Cognitive Development Society Book Award

The Fundamentals of Brain Development, as Stiles intended, is a timely survey of developmental neurobiology. Neuronal differentiation, migration, plasticity, sensitive periods, intrinsic factors and a discussion of experiential environments are all here. It is detailed, beautifully illustrated, thoroughly researched and should become a standard for any researcher who needs to look to neurobiological explanations to account for early developmental changes.
   --Bruce M. Hood, Nature

[Stiles] ends up taking readers through a surprisingly detailed exposition of brain development and constructing a scholarly synthesis that will inform not only developmental psychology but even all of neuroscience and cognitive science.
   --Mriganka Sur, Science

[Stiles] successfully blends the genetic regulation of brain development with the influence of environment at each developmental stage.
   --L. A. Meserve, Choice

This incisive and accessible account of brain development should be of great interest to the serious student of human behavior. Stiles does a superlative job of reviewing a vast literature, and her discussion of nativism, and the nature/nurture problem, is brilliant. I wish The Fundamentals of Brain Development could be a foundational text for all graduate work in developmental psychology.
   --Charles A. Nelson, Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School

Joan Stiles is Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California at San Diego.