At first sight, I would describe that as a green ink PDF.
On Electron Microscopy, for example:
"How much of the functionally relevant information can be deduced from scanning in a particular modality (e.g. electron microscopy)? At present, electron microscopy appears to be the only scanning method that has the right resolution to reach synaptic connectivity, but it is limited in what chemical state information it can reveal. If it is possible to deduce the function of a neuron, synapse or other structure through image interpretation methods, then scanning would be far simpler than if this is not (in which case some form of hybrid method or entirely new scanning modality would have to be developed). This issue appears to form a potentially well‐defined research question that could be pursued. Answering it would require finding a suitable model system for which ground truth (the computational functionality of target system) was known, using the scanning modality to produce imagery and then testing out various forms of interpretation on the data."
You may translate that as 'it's plausible to imagine that EM can do this simply'. I would translate it as: 'EM's the only technology that could give us the resolution, and there is absolutely no way it can reveal the chemical state, nor is there any way of preparing a sample of organic tissue for EM that won't damage the very state you're trying to record. Charge build-up will be a real issue on a sample you don't make conductive (even with TEM), and making it conductive without masking the underlying detail you're searching for is probably impossible. It might be possible to overcome one of these limitations in the future, but nobody has a clue how to.'
Also, they're asking whether it's possible to deduce the 'function' of a neuron - even if that were possible, it's an altogether harder prospect to deduce the state of the neuron at the time of death, even if you know the function.
I find it difficult to imagine that that passage was written by anyone at all familiar with how EM works - it smacks of someone who thinks it's basically like optical microscopy with a bigger lens - and furthermore, in the twenty years since I first did any hands-on SEM and TEM, we've moved no closer to making brain scans with it a practical proposition (as far as I can tell from reading around Wikipedia).
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 01:58 pm (UTC)On Electron Microscopy, for example:
"How much of the functionally relevant information can be deduced from scanning in a particular modality (e.g. electron microscopy)? At present, electron microscopy appears to be the only scanning method that has the right resolution to reach synaptic connectivity, but it is limited in what chemical state information it can reveal. If it is possible to deduce the function of a neuron, synapse or other structure through image interpretation methods, then scanning would be far simpler than if this is not (in which case some form of hybrid method or entirely new scanning modality would have to be developed). This issue appears to form a potentially well‐defined research question that could be pursued. Answering it would require finding a suitable model system for which ground truth (the computational functionality of target system) was known, using the scanning modality to produce imagery and then testing out various forms of interpretation on the data."
You may translate that as 'it's plausible to imagine that EM can do this simply'. I would translate it as: 'EM's the only technology that could give us the resolution, and there is absolutely no way it can reveal the chemical state, nor is there any way of preparing a sample of organic tissue for EM that won't damage the very state you're trying to record. Charge build-up will be a real issue on a sample you don't make conductive (even with TEM), and making it conductive without masking the underlying detail you're searching for is probably impossible. It might be possible to overcome one of these limitations in the future, but nobody has a clue how to.'
Also, they're asking whether it's possible to deduce the 'function' of a neuron - even if that were possible, it's an altogether harder prospect to deduce the state of the neuron at the time of death, even if you know the function.
I find it difficult to imagine that that passage was written by anyone at all familiar with how EM works - it smacks of someone who thinks it's basically like optical microscopy with a bigger lens - and furthermore, in the twenty years since I first did any hands-on SEM and TEM, we've moved no closer to making brain scans with it a practical proposition (as far as I can tell from reading around Wikipedia).