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The past decade has seen a very rapid expansion of research endeavor in neurobiology that has accompanied the appearance of new concepts and new technologies aimed directly at this very complex field. The state of knowledge, however, is still developing and it is thus possible to expect a work such as the present one to present a reasonably comprehensive view of the emerging field of the neurobiology of the trace elements. Because they are nondegradable and both physically and chemically unique, the trace elements are intrinsically easy to quantify precisely and in very small amounts. Although it has not emerged in the present pair of volumes, the use of the electron probe to localize metabolic elements in single cells at the level of resolution of the electron microscope appears to present an opportunity to match, for trace elements, the specificity that immunocytochemistry has given to the location and mapping of neurotransmitter pathways in the central nervous system. The latter technique itself has been successfully used to locate two copper enzymes—dopamine betahydroxylase and cytochrome oxidase—in the brain and applications to the other trace elements will no doubt follow. |
