Enteric Neuroscience - Michael Camilleri

Spatial Physiology

The sequences in the movie were prepared using three-dimensional reconstructed data from the human data set generated by the National Library of Medicine and from three-dimensional data reconstructed from the guinea pig generated by this laboratory. An effort was made to use as much real anatomical data as possible; where real data were not available lines representing axons were used to illustrate putative neural pathways. The ganglion is a guinea pig IMG and the neurons inside were independently reconstructed but reassembled to reflect each neuron's correct location within the ganglion.

During the "fly-through" the observer will notice a cartoon insert superimposed on the image. The ball in the cartoon shows the location of the observer so the big picture is always available. Images obtained from the guinea pig begin with the spatial distribution of 5 Lucifer-Yellow filled neurons in a dorsal root ganglion. The observer moves through the dorsal root ganglion, through the inferior mesenteric ganglion, into the intrinsic nervous system of the colon, out of the colon and back into the inferior mesenteric ganglion where the orientation of multiple neurons is displayed. The "fly-through" concludes by flying into a neuron and examining the internal structure of the soma and its process.

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