Collingridge G L
Department of Pharmacology, University of Birmingham Medical School, UK.
J Neurosci Methods. 1995 Jun;59(1):5-9. doi: 10.1016/0165-0270(94)00187-l.
Henry McIlwain is usually remembered for his major contributions to the discipline of neurochemistry. He also had a profound influence on electrophysiology by inventing and establishing the brain slice technique. This article describes some of his pioneering studies where he devised ways of preparing, both manually and mechanically (using the McIlwain tissue chopper), viable slices of mammalian cortical tissue and showed how these could be maintained in a brain slice chamber. His work with Choh-Luh Li (Li and McIlwain, 1957) on the first intracellular recording from brain slices and his work with Chosaburo Yamamoto (Yamamoto and McIlwain, 1966) describing the first study of synaptic transmission in brain slices are highlighted. In these studies, McIlwain started the use of brain slices to investigate functional anatomy, to study the effects of hypoxia and hypoglycaemia, to perform quantitative pharmacological analyses and to study synaptic plasticity: investigations which continue today to provide important insights into the functioning of the brain in health and disease.
亨利·麦基尔韦恩通常因其对神经化学学科的重大贡献而被人们铭记。他还通过发明并建立脑片技术，对电生理学产生了深远影响。本文介绍了他的一些开创性研究，在这些研究中，他设计了手动和机械（使用麦基尔韦恩组织切片机）制备哺乳动物皮质组织活切片的方法，并展示了如何将这些切片保存在脑片实验箱中。重点介绍了他与赵路·李（李和麦基尔韦恩，1957年）关于首次从脑片中进行细胞内记录的工作，以及他与山本正三郎（山本和麦基尔韦恩，1966年）描述首次对脑片中突触传递进行研究的工作。在这些研究中，麦基尔韦恩开启了利用脑片来研究功能解剖学、研究缺氧和低血糖的影响、进行定量药理学分析以及研究突触可塑性的先河：这些研究至今仍在继续，为深入了解大脑在健康和疾病状态下的功能提供了重要见解。
