Recent developments in intracellular staining

The correlation of neurone structure with neurone function has become a central issue in the study of the nervous system. In recent years, neuromorphological methods have been developed which permit not only analysis of circuits of populations of neurones, but also the elucidation of structural features of individual neurones which have been characterized electrophysiologically. There exists today a spectrum of anatomical techniques which differ in their degree of selectivity and their ability to reveal structure-function correlations. Here Carol Mason and Michael O'Shea summarize some recent developments.