The History of Quantitative Neuroanatomy

For several centuries neuroanatomists have been looking at tissue in the light microscope, describing what they see in words, and drawing pictures of the structures that they see contained in the tissue. Microscope equipment and viewing techniques have developed over the decades, as have histological procedures for preparing the tissue for the researcher’s examination. Independently, the computer field has been blossoming, but at a much more rapid pace. The pressures of World War II caused the first digital computers to be developed for practical use. Through the 1950s and 1960s, large computers were developed for military, banking, and census work. These machines were far too expensive and cantankerous for a biological research laboratory. In the late 1960s, however, the laboratory computer began to appear at a price within the range of well-funded research laboratories. At this time, the two fields, computers and biological research, began to merge. And in the last 20 years, the laboratory computer has been applied to almost every laboratory task. This book describes the computer’s application to neuroanatomy and its role in collecting and analyzing the shapes and functions of anatomic structures.