The Thalamus and Midbrain of Man

ness to remarkable advances in neuroanatomical technique. It is the product of a multi-disciplinary meeting of neuroscientists at the National Institutes of Health in June, 1981 and its 28 chapters cover concise areas of neurocytological research. Common to all is the critical application of cytochemical techniques to solve problems in neuroscience research, be they anatomical, physiological or pharmacological. This is not a textbook of cytochemistry, and one will not find, for example, technical aspects of catecholamine or peptide localisation covered comprehensively. The aim is to show how neuroscientists are exploiting these new techniques to solve a great variety of problems, and at the same time to provide a critical account of their use. The well established techniques based on anterograde and retrograde transport of tracer substances are touched upon in a fine opening chapter in which Hendrickson shows how she and her colleagues have combined autoradiographic tracer studies with conventional histochemistry, immunocytochemistry, and 14Cdeoxyglucose autoradiography to analyse the nature of occular dominance columns of the monkey striate cortex. A relatively new approach which features in several chapters, and is reviewed in detail by Cuenod and colleagues, is transmitter specific retrograde labelling. Various tritiated neurotransmitters (including amino acids, biogenic amines, and choline) can be localised within neurons, pathways, or (with electron microscope autoradiography) synapses, following intracerebral injection, although the biological significance of this intriguing phenomenon remains uncertain. Theoretical aspects of immunocytochemical technique are well covered, with consideration of antigendefined immunocytochemistry, the use of monoclonal antibodies, and a helpful chapter on the validity of these techniques, and the significance of false negatives and false positives. There are two chapters on the localisation of GABA-ergic neurons (both giving detailed protocols) and there are technical details in the chapters on the localisation of serotoninergic systems and description of intracellular labelling (with horseradish peroxidase) of physiologically identified neurons in the central nervous system. As one would expect, neuropeptides figure prominently, introduced by Chan-Palay in a fascinating account of the co-existence of neuroactive substances within individual neurons in the mammalion CNS, and including chapters on the cytochemistry of enteric nervi horn of the spinal cord, the and tectum, neuroendocrine omic neuropeptides, and con peptide heterogeneity and ne The editors and publishers gratulated on presenting < finished, finely illustrated, a up-to-date volume packed wi technical information. It will t consulted in the library and th Its eclecticism, and the natur neuroscience, ensure that it w neuroscientists of many discip price will be within the buc departments. This is not a boo to bridge the gap between science and clinical neurolc neuropathologists, neuropha and clinicians who wish to kee] rapidly changing field, a depar will be well worthwhile.