Morphological determinants of neurotransmission in autonomic ganglia.

神经系统由数十亿个神经细胞组成，这些细胞以特殊的方式连接在一起，处理有关外部世界和我们内部状态的信息，然后产生我们身体对这些信息的适当反应。为了理解大脑及其神经的复杂工作，我们必须了解所有这些神经是如何相互连接的。我们感兴趣的是控制内部器官功能的神经，比如动脉、腺体和肠道。大脑自动控制这些功能，所以我们通常不会直接意识到它们的活动。改变内部器官活动的指令从大脑发送到脊髓。然后，这些信息通过一组特殊的神经从脊髓传送到器官。然而，这些神经并不是直接连接到它们的目标，而是与另一组神经建立联系，然后这些神经继续与适当的目标器官建立最终的联系。我们对这些最终的神经细胞了解很多，包括它们有多大，它们看起来有多复杂，以及它们使用哪种化学物质来向它们控制的器官发送信息。然而，我们仍然不太清楚这些神经是如何相互连接的。在这个项目中，我们将使用不同类型的现代显微镜，使用激光或电子束直接观察神经及其连接。然后，我们将使用计算机化模型来构建神经通往目标器官的详细路径图。通过了解神经是如何在这些通路中相互连接的，我们将能够了解大脑的指令是如何根据身体中同时发生的其他事情而修改的。当我们生病或受伤时，这些信息对于帮助我们了解神经是如何工作的至关重要。

The nervous system consists of billions of nerve cells that are connected together in special ways to process information about the outside world and our internal state and then generate the appropriate responses of our body to this information. To understand the complex working of the brain and its nerves, we have to understand how all these nerves are connected to each other. We are interested in the nerves that control the functions of the internal organs, such as arteries, glands and the gut. The brain controls these functions automatically, so we usually are not directly aware of their activity. The instructions to change the activity of the internal organs are sent from the brain down the spinal cord. The information is then sent from the spinal cord to the organs via a special set of nerves. However, instead of going directly to their targets, these nerves make connections with yet another set of nerves, which then go on to make the final connections with the appropriate target organs. We know a lot about these final nerve cells, including how big they are, how complicated they look, and what kinds of chemicals they use to send messages to the organs that they control. However, we still do not very much about how all these nerves are connected to each other. In this project we will use different types of modern microscopes that use either lasers or electron beams to look directly at the nerves and their connections. We then will use computerised models to construct a detailed map of the pathways taken by the nerves on their way to their target organs. By knowing how the nerves are connected to each other in these pathways, we will be able to understand how the instructions of the brain are modified depending on what other things are going on in the body at the same time. This information will be vital to help us appreciate how the nerves work when we get sick or injured.