Atlas of Brain

This book is the first digital atlas of the degu brain with microscopic features simultaneously in Nissl sections and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). As an experimental animal model, the degu contributes to a variety of medical research fields in diabetes, hyperglycemia, pancreatic function, and adaptation to high altitude, among others. Recently the degu has gained increasing importance in the field of neuroscience, particularly in studies evaluating the relationship between sociality and cognitive brain functions, and in studies pertaining to the evolutional aspects of the acquisition of tool-use abilities.

The Atlas provides a complete overview of all major structures of the mouse brain that can be identified in Golgi preparations. The most important feature is its three-dimensional integrity since all structures and nerve tracts can be followed from one section to the next one with uninterrupted continuity. The Golgi Atlas presents a series of camera lucida drawings of the entire telencephalon and upper brain stem of the young postnatal mouse in 24 transverse, 11 sagittal and 15 horizontal planes. The drawings were prepared from selected brains stained in toto with the Golgi method, that have been serially sectioned in the three orthogonal planes.

Neuroanatomy is considered one of the most complex subjects in the field of anatomy. The reliable literature for students is limited to classical anatomical books, many of them re-editions of publications from the previous century, with black-and-white illustrations or computer-generated images. In this sense, the literature lacks a neuroanatomical atlas depicting the brain's surface anatomy and intrinsic anatomy with actual anatomical preparations.

The traditional education of the neurosurgeon and duce simultaneous contrast preparations of the ar­ the clinician working in related specialties is based teries and veins and thus obtain a complex photo­ on their presumed knowledge of the macroscopic graphic representation of the structures of the prep­ anatomy of the brain as traditionally taught. Most aration. neurosurgical textbooks, therefore, provide macro­ The manuscript and drawings were completed in the scopic views of sections of the operative site. The years 1974-1976 after almost two decades of neu­ literature that has accumulated in recent years on rosurgical work. The data worked out in the early the subject of microneurosurgical operations also stages (Chapter 1 in particular) were used by the follows this principle. author as the basis for teaching programmes at the For some years, however, the customary macro­ University of Giessen. Chapters 2-7, dealing with scopic representation of the anatomy of the brain the operative technical aspects, were produced after has been inadequate for the needs of the neurosur­ mid-1975 and used by the author as the basis for geon using refined modern operative techniques. microneurosurgical teaching of his colleagues at the Furthermore, despite their detailed presentation, University of Freiburg. stereotactic atlases are also insufficient for neuro­ My thanks are due to Doz. Dr. E.

Your brain is a collection of maps. That is no metaphor: scrawled across your brain's surfaces are actual schematic images of the sights, sounds, and actions that hold the key to your survival.