Computer Processing of Electron Microscope Images

Towards the end of the 1960s, a number of quite different circumstances combined to launch a period of intense activity in the digital processing of electron micro­ graphs. First, many years of work on correcting the resolution-limiting aberrations of electron microscope objectives had shown that these optical impediments to very high resolution could indeed be overcome, but only at the cost of immense exper­ imental difficulty; thanks largely to the theoretical work of K. -J. Hanszen and his colleagues and to the experimental work of F. Thon, the notions of transfer func­ tions were beginning to supplant or complement the concepts of geometrical optics in electron optical thinking; and finally, large fast computers, capable of manipu­ lating big image matrices in a reasonable time, were widely accessible. Thus the idea that recorded electron microscope images could be improved in some way or rendered more informative by subsequent computer processing gradually gained ground. At first, most effort was concentrated on three-dimensional reconstruction, particu­ larly of specimens with natural symmetry that could be exploited, and on linear operations on weakly scattering specimens (Chap. l). In 1973, however, R. W. Gerchberg and W. O. Saxton described an iterative algorithm that in principle yielded the phase and amplitude of the electron wave emerging from a strongly scattering speci­ men.

Until recently, many neuroscientists were skeptical of the idea that classical neurotransmitters could be co-released from neurons. It is now common knowledge, though, that the "one neuron, one neurotransmitter" postulate is the exception rather than the rule. Co-Existence and Co-Release of Classical Neurotransmitters provides readers with a comprehensive overview of research from the world’s leading neuroscience authors, all of whom have discovered and studied the co-existence or co-release of several pairs of neurotransmitters in neural networks. Their reviews include novel aspects of transmitter combinations, such as NA-ACh, monoamines-glutamate, ACh-glutamate, cross-talk between monoamines, GABA and ATP, and various combinations of aminoacid transmitters.

Co-Existence and Co-Release of Classical Neurotransmitters will be particularly useful to neuroscience graduate students, academics, and researchers in synaptic physiology and synaptic plasticity. This book is the first of its kind to center on the timely issue of co-release of neurotransmitters, and serves as an important contribution to the re-consideration of this idea in other brain regions.

About the Editor:

Dr. Rafael Gutiérrez was among the first to study the physiological impact of the co-existence of glutamate and GABA in the hippocampus, particularly the developmental and activity-dependent expression of GABAergic markers in granule cells. Since 1997, Dr. Gutiérrez has been a professor of neurosciences at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (CINVESTAV) in Mexico City. He recieved his PhD in Neurosciences from the National University of Mexico in 1993 and, under the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Research Scholarship, worked for three years with pathophysiology expert Uwe Heinemann in Germany.