COMPUTER-ASSISTED METHOD FOR SIMULTANEOUS 3-DIMENSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION OF HIGHLY MAGNIFIED NERVE-ENDINGS AND LOW-MAGNIFICATION CONTOURS OF THE SPINAL-CORD

Three-dimensional reconstructions of biological structures can be obta ined by the use of serial sections, tomography, confocal microscopy te chniques and X-ray crystallography. The earliest reconstructions were achieved manually, but semi-automatic and automatic techniques are now available. Tissue studied by microscopy contains structures of greatl y varying dimensions. When producing a three-dimensional reconstructio n of the contours of the spinal cord and its white and grey matter, gr eater magnification of the fine nerve endings may provide additional i nformation. However, reconstruction at different magnifications of the structures of interest cannot be achieved automatically, but requires manual delineation of the structures. A method is described in which a commercial program was used to provide a wire-frame reconstruction w hich had been drawn by hand. The data were processed further to obtain a realistic image which could be rotated to provide details of the th ree-dimensional relationships of the spinal cord structures. This tech nique is useful when relationships and details are otherwise difficult to comprehend due to large size differences.