Cajal S Neuronal Forest

Cajal's Neuronal Forest: Science and Art continues the tradition set forth by its sister volume Cajal's Butterflies of the Soul (OUP, 2009). This new collection contains hundreds of beautiful rarely-seen-before figures produced throughout the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century by famed father-of-modern-neuroscience Santiago Ram n y Cajal (1852-1934) and his contemporaries. Cajal was captivated by the beautiful shapes of the cells of the nervous system. He and his fellow scientists saw neurons as trees and glial cells as bushes. Given their high density and arrangement, neurons and glial resembled a thick forest, a seemingly impenetrable terrain of interacting cells mediating cognition and behavior. In unraveling the mysteries of the brain, these researchers encountered an almost infinite number of cellular forms with an extraordinary beauty, which they could not help but put pen to paper, allowing them to discover a new artistic world- the neuronal forest- that gave free rein not only to their imagination, but to a new way of viewing the brain as well. This book has been divided into two parts. The first focuses on the scientific atmosphere in Cajal's times, on the history of the neuron, and the anatomical challenge posed in studying neuronal connections. It also delves into the artistic skills of Cajal and other important pioneers in neuroscience and how the neuronal forests have served as an unlimited source of artistic inspiration. The second consists of 275 original drawings by Cajal. All were published over the course of his scientific career and cover virtually all of his research fields of interest, including the spinal cord, the optic lobe and retina, cerebral cortex, and many other regions of the brain. Cajal's Neuronal Forest: Science and Art is a testament to the natural beauty found in science. Despite the common misconception that the drawings of Cajal and other scientists of the time are pieces of art, these drawings are in fact copies of histological preparations and contributed greatly to the discoveries made in the field of neuroscience. This book is a gem in any library, whether serving as a medical history or a gallery of stunning sketches.

When Santiago Ramón y Cajal started to unravel the fine structure of the nervous system in the last decades of the XIXth century maybe only his unbeatable soul of brave Spaniard imagined that most of the descriptions were scientific truths that lasted to date. Simple histological stainings, curiosity to ameliorate these, monocular microscopes, patience for drawing his observations and a rich imaginative open mind: this is the recipy for Cajal success. His descriptions of connectivity in the nervous system, compiled in Cajal's opus magna published in 1904 ("Textura del sistema nervioso del hombre y los vertebrados") and 1911 ("Histologie du systeme nerveux"), have been corroborated by modern techniques decade after decade. Even more, the main hypothesis that Cajal raised are universally recognised as biological laws, today: the neuron theory, the law on the dynamic polarization of the neuron and the chemotropic hypothesis. That is: the nervous system is not a sincitial network but is formed by individual cells; the transmission of the nerve impulses follow a main direction within a given neuron; the axons are guided by chemical substances in a chemotropic way, till form synapses with their targets. Attracted by Cajal's strong personality and scientific success, a number of medical students and doctors join him in the crusade to explore the nervous system. And the seed planted by the universal savant was really successful: Francisco Tello described interesting aspects of the regeneration of peripheral nerves which are very useful for neuroscientist currently working in this topic; Nicolás Achúcarro significantly contributed to study neuroglia and future microglia; Pío del Río-Hortega identified two out of the four main nervous cell types, the oligodendrocytes and microglia, and proposed an almost still valid classification for the CNS tumours; Fernando de Castro made was the first description of arterial chemoreceptors in the carotid body; Rafael Lorente de Nó was a dominant figure of Neuroscience for decades after the IInd World War, first describing the columnar organization of the cerebral cortex well before Mountcastle, Hubbel and Wiesel. Even less recognised co-workers and disciples of Cajal (his brother Pedro Ramón y Cajal, Domingo Sánchez, the neurologist Rodríguez-Lafora... protagonised discoveries that are consolidated scientific truths today). Altogether, it is difficult (if not impossible) to find a school in biology contributing in such a fundamental and variated way to the common acervo like the collectively known as Cajal School or Spanish Neurological School. Although the particular way to work of the Maestro, selecting a pleiade of brilliant collaborators with whom accomplish such a titanic feat, giving them freedom for their studies, has been recognised and confronted to antagonic systems followed by other relevant scientists and scientific schools, the general recognition of such a significant major milestones for Neuroscience and their vigency in the well-marched XXIst century is not: this is the purpose of this Ebook, to remind all these examples of how successful can be the scientific work when it is minutious, constant and performed by brilliant, imaginative and skilled scientists with a minimal conditions supporting their efforts.

"Passionate and meticulous . . . [Ehrlich] delivers thought-provoking metaphors, unforgettable scenes and many beautifully worded phrases." —Benjamin Labatut, The New York Times Book Review One of The Telegraph's best books of the year The first major biography of the Nobel Prize–winning scientist who discovered neurons and transformed our understanding of the human mind—illustrated with his extraordinary anatomical drawings Unless you’re a neuroscientist, Santiago Ramón y Cajal is likely the most important figure in the history of biology you’ve never heard of. Along with Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur, he ranks among the most brilliant and original biologists of the nineteenth century, and his discoveries have done for our understanding of the human brain what the work of Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton did for our conception of the physical universe. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1906 for his lifelong investigation of the structure of neurons: “The mysterious butterflies of the soul,” Cajal called them, “whose beating of wings may one day reveal to us the secrets of the mind.” And he produced a dazzling oeuvre of anatomical drawings, whose alien beauty grace the pages of medical textbooks and the walls of museums to this day. Benjamin Ehrlich’s The Brain in Search of Itself is the first major biography in English of this singular figure, whose scientific odyssey mirrored the rocky journey of his beloved homeland of Spain into the twentieth century. Born into relative poverty in a mountaintop hamlet, Cajal was an enterprising and unruly child whose ambitions were both nurtured and thwarted by his father, a country doctor with a flinty disposition. A portrait of a nation as well a biography, The Brain in Search of Itself follows Cajal from the hinterlands to Barcelona and Madrid, where he became an illustrious figure—resisting and ultimately transforming the rigid hierarchies and underdeveloped science that surrounded him. To momentous effect, Cajal devised a theory that was as controversial in his own time as it is universal in ours: that the nervous system is comprised of individual cells with distinctive roles, just like any other organ in the body. In one of the greatest scientific rivalries in history, he argued his case against Camillo Golgi and prevailed. In our age of neuro-imaging and investigations into the neural basis of the mind, Cajal is the artistic and scientific forefather we must get to know. The Brain in Search of Itself is at once the story of how the brain as we know it came into being and a finely wrought portrait of an individual as fantastical and complex as the subject to which he devoted his life.

This book contains a large collection of beautiful figures produced throughout the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century and that represent some characteristic examples of the early days of research in neuroscience. The main aim of this work is to demonstrate to the general public that the study of the nervous system is not only important for the many obvious reasons related to brain function in both health and disease, but also for the unexpected natural beauty that it beholds. This beauty has been discovered thanks to the techniques used to visualize the microscopic structure of the brain, a true forest of colorful and florid neural cells. As illustrated by his marvelous drawings, the studies of Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934) no doubt contributed more than those of any other researcher at the time to the growth of modern neuroscience. Thus, we have honored his name in the title of this book, even though the figures contained in the main body of the book are from 91 authors. Looking at the illustrations in this book the readers will not only marvel at Cajal's drawings but they will also find that many of the other early researchers that studied the nervous system were also true artists, of considerable talent and aesthetic sensibility. Thus, the present book contains numerous drawings of some of the most important pioneers in neuroscience, including Deiters, Kolliker, Meynert, Ranvier, Golgi, Retzius, Nissl, Dogiel, Alzheimer, del Rio-Hortega and de Castro. The book has been divided into two Parts, Part I and II, the latter containing the main body of the work. Part I contains introductory information that will give readers unfamiliar with the nervous system a better understanding of the importance of the scientific illustrations produced in those days. The second part of the book, Part II, contains the collection of 282 figures with the intention of transforming the reader into an observer. These illustrations have been divided in three main categories: Section I, The Benedictine period: The early days; Section II, The black period: Neurons, glia and organization of the nervous system; Section III, The colorful period: internal structure and chemistry of the cells. This book will be of general interest, not only due to the captivating aesthetic appeal of the illustrations but also because they represent the bases of our current understanding of the nervous system. The reader will find that many of the illustrations can be considered to belong to different artistic movements, such as modernism, surrealism, cubism, abstract art or impressionism. Indeed, these illustrations may also provide artists with a source of inspiration since they reveal a fantastic and virtually unknown world of forms, a microuniverse with an aura of mystery.

When Santiago Ramón y Cajal started to unravel the fine structure of the nervous system in the last decades of the XIXth century maybe only his unbeatable soul of brave Spaniard imagined that most of the descriptions were scientific truths that lasted to date. Simple histological stainings, curiosity to ameliorate these, monocular microscopes, patience for drawing his observations and a rich imaginative open mind: this is the recipy for Cajal success. His descriptions of connectivity in the nervous system, compiled in Cajal's opus magna published in 1904 ("Textura del sistema nervioso del hombre y los vertebrados") and 1911 ("Histologie du systeme nerveux"), have been corroborated by modern techniques decade after decade. Even more, the main hypothesis that Cajal raised are universally recognised as biological laws, today: the neuron theory, the law on the dynamic polarization of the neuron and the chemotropic hypothesis. That is: the nervous system is not a sincitial network but is formed by individual cells; the transmission of the nerve impulses follow a main direction within a given neuron; the axons are guided by chemical substances in a chemotropic way, till form synapses with their targets. Attracted by Cajal's strong personality and scientific success, a number of medical students and doctors join him in the crusade to explore the nervous system. And the seed planted by the universal savant was really successful: Francisco Tello described interesting aspects of the regeneration of peripheral nerves which are very useful for neuroscientist currently working in this topic; Nicolás Achúcarro significantly contributed to study neuroglia and future microglia; Pío del Río-Hortega identified two out of the four main nervous cell types, the oligodendrocytes and microglia, and proposed an almost still valid classification for the CNS tumours; Fernando de Castro made was the first description of arterial chemoreceptors in the carotid body; Rafael Lorente de Nó was a dominant figure of Neuroscience for decades after the IInd World War, first describing the columnar organization of the cerebral cortex well before Mountcastle, Hubbel and Wiesel. Even less recognised co-workers and disciples of Cajal (his brother Pedro Ramón y Cajal, Domingo Sánchez, the neurologist Rodríguez-Lafora... protagonised discoveries that are consolidated scientific truths today). Altogether, it is difficult (if not impossible) to find a school in biology contributing in such a fundamental and variated way to the common acervo like the collectively known as Cajal School or Spanish Neurological School. Although the particular way to work of the Maestro, selecting a pleiade of brilliant collaborators with whom accomplish such a titanic feat, giving them freedom for their studies, has been recognised and confronted to antagonic systems followed by other relevant scientists and scientific schools, the general recognition of such a significant major milestones for Neuroscience and their vigency in the well-marched XXIst century is not: this is the purpose of this Ebook, to remind all these examples of how successful can be the scientific work when it is minutious, constant and performed by brilliant, imaginative and skilled scientists with a minimal conditions supporting their efforts.When Santiago Ramón y Cajal started to unravel the fine structure of the nervous system in the last decades of the XIXth century maybe only his unbeatable soul of brave Spaniard imagined that most of the descriptions were scientific truths that lasted to date. Simple histological stainings, curiosity to ameliorate these, monocular microscopes, patience for drawing his observations and a rich imaginative open mind: this is the recipy for Cajal success. His descriptions of connectivity in the nervous system, compiled in Cajal's opus magna published in 1904 ("Textura del sistema nervioso del hombre y los vertebrados") and 1911 ("Histologie du systeme nerveux"), have been corroborated by modern techniques decade after decade. Even more, the main hypothesis that Cajal raised are universally recognised as biological laws, today: the neuron theory, the law on the dynamic polarization of the neuron and the chemotropic hypothesis. That is: the nervous system is not a sincitial network but is formed by individual cells; the transmission of the nerve impulses follow a main direction within a given neuron; the axons are guided by chemical substances in a chemotropic way, till form synapses with their targets. Attracted by Cajal's strong personality and scientific success, a number of medical students and doctors join him in the crusade to explore the nervous system. And the seed planted by the universal savant was really successful: Francisco Tello described interesting aspects of the regeneration of peripheral nerves which are very useful for neuroscientist currently working in this topic; Nicolás Achúcarro significantly contributed to study neuroglia and future microglia; Pío del Río-Hortega identified two out of the four main nervous cell types, the oligodendrocytes and microglia, and proposed an almost still valid classification for the CNS tumours; Fernando de Castro made was the first description of arterial chemoreceptors in the carotid body; Rafael Lorente de Nó was a dominant figure of Neuroscience for decades after the IInd World War, first describing the columnar organization of the cerebral cortex well before Mountcastle, Hubbel and Wiesel. Even less recognised co-workers and disciples of Cajal (his brother Pedro Ramón y Cajal, Domingo Sánchez, the neurologist Rodríguez-Lafora... protagonised discoveries that are consolidated scientific truths today). Altogether, it is difficult (if not impossible) to find a school in biology contributing in such a fundamental and variated way to the common acervo like the collectively known as Cajal School or Spanish Neurological School. Although the particular way to work of the Maestro, selecting a pleiade of brilliant collaborators with whom accomplish such a titanic feat, giving them freedom for their studies, has been recognised and confronted to antagonic systems followed by other relevant scientists and scientific schools, the general recognition of such a significant major milestones for Neuroscience and their vigency in the well-marched XXIst century is not: this is the purpose of this Ebook, to remind all these examples of how successful can be the scientific work when it is minutious, constant and performed by brilliant, imaginative and skilled scientists with a minimal conditions supporting their efforts.

This book contains a large collection of beautiful figures produced throughout the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century and that represent some characteristic examples of the early days of research in neuroscience. The main aim of this work is to demonstrate to the general public that the study of the nervous system is not only important for the many obvious reasons related to brain function in both health and disease, but also for the unexpected natural beauty that it beholds. This beauty has been discovered thanks to the techniques used to visualize the microscopic structure of the brain, a true forest of colourful and florid neural cells. As illustrated by his marvellous drawings, the studies of Santiago Ramon y Cajal (1852-1934) no doubt contributed more than those of any other researcher at the time to the growth of modern neuroscience. Thus, we have honored his name in the title of this book, even though the figures contained in the main body of the book are from 91 authors. Looking at the illustrations in this book the readers will not only marvel at Cajal's drawings but they will also find that many of the other early researchers that studied the nervous system were also true artists, of considerable talent and aesthetic sensibility. Thus, the present book contains numerous drawings of some of the most important pioneers in neuroscience, including Deiters, Kolliker, Meynert, Ranvier, Golgi, Retzius, Nissl, Dogiel, Alzheimer, del Rio-Hortega and de Castro. The colourful period: internal structure and chemistry of the cells. This book will be of general interest, not only due to the captivating aesthetic appeal of the illustrations but also because they represent the bases of our current understanding of the nervous system.

An anecdotal guide for the perplexed new investigator as well as a refreshing resource for the old pro, covering everything from valuable personality traits for an investigator to social factors conducive to scientific work. Santiago Ramón y Cajal was a mythic figure in science. Hailed as the father of modern anatomy and neurobiology, he was largely responsible for the modern conception of the brain. His groundbreaking works were New Ideas on the Structure of the Nervous System and Histology of the Nervous System in Man and Vertebrates. In addition to leaving a legacy of unparalleled scientific research, Cajal sought to educate the novice scientist about how science was done and how he thought it should be done. This recently rediscovered classic, first published in 1897, is an anecdotal guide for the perplexed new investigator as well as a refreshing resource for the old pro. Cajal was a pragmatist, aware of the pitfalls of being too idealistic—and he had a sense of humor, particularly evident in his diagnoses of various stereotypes of eccentric scientists. The book covers everything from valuable personality traits for an investigator to social factors conducive to scientific work.