The Synapse: A Summary
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
The state of a discipline is often best revealed by the questions its practitioners ask and the classes of answers they consider acceptable. For examle, not many years ago one of neurobiology's burning questions was whether all synaptic transmission was mediated by a neurohumor or was merely the consequence of the electrical currents flowing during the presynaptic action potential. Until quite recently, questions about postjunctional receptors were answered exclusively in terms of the receptor's pharmacology, whereas today, answers invoke physical and biochemical properties of specific macromolecules.
The types of questions asked and the kinds of statements that are considered answers, then, serve to characterize knowledge in a field; for this reason, I have chosen to summarize the preceding papers by listing what I consider to be some of neurobiology's dominant questions and the various answers given to them. I must emphasize—by way of apology to the authors whose work...
