"If you can't draw it, you don't know it..."
That was the rule of the late neuroanatomist, William DeMyer, MD. This website is an accompaniment to the book Neuroanatomy: Draw it to Know it, published by Oxford University Press, which teaches neuroanatomy through step-by-step instruction of how to draw important neuroanatomical pathways and structures; it is designed for anyone who wants to learn clinical neuroanatomy in a practical and memorable way.
Be it the anatomic versus radiographic planes of orientation, the different spaces of the meninges, the intricacies of the brainstem or spinal cord, the rotations of the posterior column pathways as they climb the nervous system or the crossing of the corticospinal tracts in their descent, the classification of the cranial nerves, the steps in the direct and indirect pathways of the basal ganglia, the vascular territories of the intracerebral arteries, or the nomenclature and history of the limbic system - all of these aspects of the neuroanatomy are best understood when we draw them out in a straightforward and reproducible way.
Although this material was created with neuroscience students, medical students, nursing students, neurology and neurosurgery residents, and practicing neurologists in mind, we have found that health care professionals in all fields, including emergency medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, and radiology have found great benefit from this material and enjoy its teaching style. Now, it is common for us to get feedback from people from wide-ranging fields and backgrounds, such as electroneurodiagnostic technicians and rehabilitation therapists, about how much this approach to learning neuroanatomy could have benefited them during their coursework! So please, let us know, at email the author, if this material is helpful to you in your field.
Please do share your thoughts with us so we can continue to make your learning experience enjoyable. Learning neuroanatomy is hardly simple, but it should always be fun!