Computer Techniques in Neuroanatomy

This book is the story of the marriage of a new techl}ology, computers, with an old problem, the study of neuroanatomical structures using the light microscope. It is aimed toward you, the neuroanatomist, who until now have used computers primarily for word processing but now wish to use them also to collect and analyze your laboratory data. Mter reading the book, you will be better equipped to use a computer system for data collection and analysis, to employ a programmer who might develop a system for you, or to evaluate the systems available in the marketplace. To start toward this goal, a glossary first presents commonly used terms in computer- assisted neuroanatomy. This, on its own, will aid you as it merges the jargon of the two different fields. Then, Chapter 1 presents a historical review to describe the manual tasks involved in presenting and measuring anatomic structures. This review lays a base line of the tasks that were done before computers and the amount of skill and time needed to perform the tasks. In Chapters 2 and 3, you will find basic information about laboratory computers and programs to the depth required for you to use the machines easily and talk with some fluency to computer engineers, programmers, and salesmen. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 present the use of computers to reconstruct anatomic structures, i.e., to enter them into a computer memory, where they are later displayed and analyzed.