© The Author (2007). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
Editorial
| The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below. |
Anyone wishing to trace the history of anatomical discovery in the nervous system ends up considering observations that pre-date by many centuries the launch of modern macroscopic and microscopic anatomy in the 16th and 18th centuries, respectively. Thus, the study of form and function starts in Antiquity. But, as separate structures were accurately described, and the neuron doctrine firmly established, so it became necessary accurately to map and interpret axonal connections and fibre pathways of the brain and spinal cord. These are beautiful arrangements, visually and in organisational terms, and the artistry that first stimulated their study in the Renaissance period is no less evident today in the depictions based on
Cambridge