THE THEORETICAL FOUNDATION OF DENDRITIC FUNCTION.
Selected Papers of Wilfrid Rall with Commentaries.
edited by Idan Segev, John Rinzel, and Gordon M. Shepherd
MIT Press, Computational Neuroscience series.
Wilfrid Rall was a pioneer in establishing the integrative functions of
neuronal dendrites that have provided a foundation for neurobiology in
general and computational neuroscience in particular. This collection
of fifteen previously published papers, some of them not widely
available, have been carefully chosen and annotated by Rall's
colleagues and other leading neuroscientists. It brings together
Rall's work over more than forty years, including his first papers
extending cable theory to complex dendritic trees, his ground-breaking
paper introducing compartmental analysis to computational neuroscience,
and his studies of synaptic integration in motoneurons, extracellular
fields around dendritic neurons, dendro-dendritic interactions,
plasticity of dendritic spines, and active dendritic properties.
The editors' introduction highlights the major insights that were
gained from Rall's studies as well as from those of his collaborators
and followers. It asks the questions that Rall proposed during his
scientific career and briefly summarizes the answers.
The papers include commentaries by Milton Brightman, Robert E. Burke,
William R. Holmes, Donald R. Humphrey, Julian J. B. Jack, John Miller,
Stephen Redman, John Rinzel, Idan Segev, Gordon M. Shepherd, and
Charles Wilson.
SPECIAL NOTE:
The book will be debuted at the Neuroscience Meeting in Miami Beach,
November 13-18, 1994. There will be a chance to chat with Wil when
he's at the MIT Press booth on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 3:00-5:00 PM.
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