The purpose of this book is to provide basic reference material to facilitate the further development and application of the intracellular staining techniques which originated with the introduction of Procion dye as a neurocellular stain. We had sev eral specific objectives in compiling these chapters. First, we recognized that both the techniques and results of intracellular staining have been derived from a variety of preparations and published in diverse journals. Consequently, we tried to make this information more readily available by incorporating several reviews by original authors. This should provide the reader with a knowledge of the kinds of neurobiological prob lems for which intracellular staining has already been employed. A second objective was to facilitate extension of these methods to a wider variety of problems. To this end there are chapters dealing with Procion dye as a marker for ultrastructural investi gations, the use of cobalt as a staining compound and the implementation of computer techniques for quantitative studies of neuronal relationships. As background for further extension of these methods this volume contains material on the history of the discovery of Procion dyes as intracellular stains, the chemistry of these dyes, and fundamentals of fluorescence microscopy. Our final specific objective was to present details of technical procedures that were not readily available in the literature.

1 The Development of Intracellular Staining

Technology of Intracellular Staining
2 Intracellular Dye Injection: The Selection of Procion Yellow and its Application in Preliminary Studies of Neuronal Geometry in the Lobster Nervous System
3 The Chemistry of Reactive Dyes and its Relevance to Intracellular Staining Techniques
4 Principles of Fluorescence Microscopy and Photomicrography with Applications to Procion Yellow
5 Procion Yellow as a Marker for Electron Microscopic Examination of Functionally Identified Nerve Cells
6 The Form of Nerve Cells: Determination by Cobalt Impregnation
Recent Applications of Intracellular Staining
7 Microelectrode Injection, Axonal Iontophoresis, and the Structure of Neurons
8 Permeability and Structure of Electrotonic Junctions and Intercellular Movements of Tracers
9 Characterization of an Insect Neuron which cannot be Visualized in situ
10 Intracellular Staining Techniques in Gastropod Molluscs
11 Morphological Identification of Single Cells in the Fish Retina by Intracellular Dye Injection
12 Morphological and Physiological Identification of Retinal Cells in the Turtle
13 Morphological Identification of Simple, Complex and Hyper-complex Cells in the Visual Cortex of the Cat
14 Procion Yellow Staining of Functionally Identified Interneurons in the Spinal Cord of the Cat
15 Procion Yellow and Cobalt as Tools for the Study of Structure-Function Relationships in Vertebrate Central Nervous Systems
Quantitative Analyses
16 Computer Analysis of Neuronal Structure
17 The Use of Intracellular Dye Injections in the Study of Small Neural Networks
18 Determination of Neuronal Membrane Properties Using Intracellular Staining Techniques
Practical Considerations
19 Current Practice and Prospects for the Intracellular Stains
20 A Guide to Intracellular Staining Techniques.