For the interested medical or neuroscience student, or for trainees in neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry, Edison K. Miyawaki summarizes years of thinking about structures deep to the brain’s cortical surface. Addressing topics alphabetically, he describes relevant anatomy in humans and other vertebrates, and incorporates advances in subcortical physiology in his discussion. He maintains that knowledge about the relationship between cortex and subcortex is vital not only to an understanding of movement, but also to a deeper sense of our conduct in space and time. Beneath the Cortical Surface is an accessible dictionary regarding how the brain works as a whole.