Keele Research Repository

The studies leading to this thesis were commenced in October 1965 in the Department of Communication at the University of Keele under the supervision of Professor D.M. MacKay. In September 1967, with the permission of the senate of the University and at the invitation of Sir John C. Eccles, I went to the Institute for Biomedical Research of the American Medical Association in Chicago to become acquainted with experimental techniques in the laboratory of Dr. R.R. Llinas.

Chapters I and V and Appendix B owe much of their content to ideas which I originated at Keele and which I subsequently developed and modified in the light of experimentation in Chicago. Chapters II, III and IV describe the experimental work carried out in Chicago as part of a programme of comparative studies initiated by Dr. Llinas. The majority of the experiments were executed in collaboration with Dr. Llinas; during the course of the work I have carried out however, at some time, all the experimental techniques described in this thesis.
A preliminary note describing the main findings reported in Chapters II and III has already appeared as:
Dendritic spikes and their inhibition in alligator Purkinje cells. By R. Llinas, C. Nicholson, J.A. Freeman
and D.E. Hillman. Science 160: 1132-1135 (1968).
A further note detailing the main findings of Chapter IV is in press under the title:
Preferred centripetal conduction of dendritic spikes in alligator Purkin-je cells. By R. Llinas, C. Nicholson and W. Precht. (To appear in Science)

During the period of the studies reported here I also visited the laboratory of Dr. R. Nieuwenhuys at the Netherlands Central Institute for Brain Research, Amsterdam, which increased my appreciation of comparative studies and resulted in the note:
Cerebellum of Mormyrids. By R. Nieuwenhuys and C. Nicholson. Nature 215: 764-76 (1967).