Acknowledgements

The initial launch of this text (1st edition) was a large undertaking in a very short period of time. We would like to acknowledge that we see this as an ongoing project, and while we’re very proud of what we have accomplished to date, we will be continuing to edit, update, and improve based on the needs of our students and program.

We would first like to thank Dalhousie’s Centre for Learning and Teaching (CLT) and Dal Libraries for awarding us the first-ever Open Educational Resources (OER) grant. This small grant allowed us to hire two (fantastic) student-partners to help us get this project off the ground. We would like to acknowledge and thank (profusely), the two undergraduate students, Alex Oprea and Mallory Whebby, who were integral to moving this project forward. Both students helped us to review existing material, rework and edit content to better align with our program, highlight potential issues, embed Tricky Topics, and much more. This book would not be possible without their contributions. Also, thanks to Geoff Brown of Dal Libraries, who helped us in the initial stages of setting up the Pressbooks site and working out many of the hiccups we encountered.

Thank you to Swasti Arora, a former BA in Psychology student, who was also hired through the OER grant and helped increase the accessibility of the 1st edition of the book by adding and editing the alternative text for all the figures, and replacing figures with some of our custom images (higher-resolution and high-contrast colours). A big thanks also goes out to Qendresa Sahiti, a graduate of the BSc (Honours) in Neuroscience and Dylan Deska-Gauthier (x-illustrations.ca), a PhD student in Medical Neurosciences at Dalhousie, who were both integral in helping us to recreate and redesign many of our Tricky Topics to ensure they met OER criteria. This allowed us to embed our Tricky Topic videos into the textbook and will allow them to be shared with all students, freely.

We’d like to highlight the amazing custom cover designed by the talented Molly Wells (http://www.mollywellsart.ca/scientific-illustration.html). You’ll notice many of Molly’s custom images throughout the book (mainly concentrated in the Biological Basis of Behaviour and Sensation & Perception) and in several of our Tricky Topics. Molly’s images have been designed with accessibility in mind, ensuring high-contrast borders and distinguishable colours.

With the launch of the ‘2nd edition’ of this textbook, it is imperative that we thank Max Dysart (BSc Neuroscience graduate) for his substantial contributions to this text. Max has been, and continues to be, integral in helping to ensure the content in this book not only reflects the diversity and strengths of our student population, but that the text itself is clear, concise, and accessible. Max brings with him a wealth of wisdom and insight through his lived experiences and educational background, and has played a meaningful role in adding several outstanding sections to this text, including (but not limited to) the redesign of the Neurodiversity, PTSD, Development, and Biological Basis of Behaviour sections.

Finally, we would like to respectfully acknowledge and thank all of the people who donated themselves – their brains, bodies, and behaviours – to science. Without these individuals, we would not have such a deep and rich understanding of psychology and neuroscience. We owe much of what is known and written about on the following pages to these individuals who have given such an amazing gift. This gratitude also extends to the non-human animals to whom we owe an immeasurable debt. We ask that you reflect on these sacrifices and gifts as you read and learn about cellular function, anatomical structures, neuropathology, treatments, development, personality, learning, and everything else from neurons to behaviour.