AN INEXPENSIVE COMPUTER-AIDED MORPHOMETRIC DEVICE FOR THE ANALYSIS OFDISSOCIATED BRAIN-CELL CULTURES

Morphometric analysis of brain cells growing in dissociated cell cultu re is a promising approach in neuroscience research. Here we present n ew software written in Turbo PASCAL which has the advantage of requiri ng only a minimum in equipment accessible in most neuroscience labs, i .e., a microscope with a camera lucida attachment and a personal compu ter. The camera lucida is used to superimpose the pictures from the mi croscope and the computer screen. With the aid of a mouse, cells are d rawn to the computer screen. The program counts pixels and calculates morphometric data including the area occupied by the cell soma as well as number, length and arborization of the processes. The program may be obtained from the authors upon request.