INTERACTIVE HISTOLOGICAL ATLAS

UNIVERSITY OF JAÉN DEPARTMENT OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY AREA OF CELLULAR BIOLOGY

AUTORS

Juan Ángel Pedrosa Raya, Mª Luisa del Moral Leal, Raquel Hernández Cobo, Francisco J. Molina Ortega, Mª Ángeles Peinado Herreros

 Mª del Alma Rus Martínez (translation and english version assembly)

    The team of lectures responsible for this work has tried to create a simple tool that helps the students of Histology and Animal and Vegetal Organography to learn the practical content of these disciplines, as complement to the observations made with the microscope in the laboratory. Our idea has been to perform a collection of images obtained from histological preparations (the same images that we used in the practical lessons). An explanatory text has been added to each image in order to serve as a learning tool for the students. These contents will be increased soon. However, we also invite other lectures to send us images following the next comments.

INSTRUCTIONS OF USE 

    This histological Atlas (in web format) is organized so that the user has the opportunity to thoroughly examine a number of microscopic preparations of different organs, as it would be made using the microscope: observing the preparation at first at the lowest magnification, and finishing at the highest one. Thus, the user will be able to learn a lot, not only about the different tissues, but also how they are arranged in the organ. For the correct use of this histological Atlas, the following recommendations should be followed:

• On the left of the Web Site there is a double index to access to the images. It appears first a connection to accede to the listing of the different animal and vegetal tissues, with the classification and components of each one. The preparations of the diverse animal and vegetal organs available in the Atlas are mentioned here. Next to each inscription of the tissues classification, appear the names of the organs or structures used as example and to which it can be acceded by means of the hyperbond (the images are shown always at the most advisable magnification to see them clearly). Then, in the index, the relation of the microscopic preparations available is listed, from which it can also be acceded to the images. In this case, on the right of the Web Site, it will appear the image obtained at the lowest magnification. We should analyse this image first in order to completely study the preparation. Clicking on the microphotography located above the index frame, it is always possible to return to the initial Web Site.

• Each image is accompanied of a brief description, indicating the magnification at which it was taken using the microscope. From each image and by means of hyperbonds, we can accede to copies of the same one, in which the different zones (framed in several colors) can be observed. As a result, the location of each tissue or structure is very easy.

• On the initial images, at the lowest magnification, appear one or more rectangles in different colors. Clicking on them, we can accede to other image of the same zone at higher magnification, showing the same descriptive characteristics. It is recommended to follow the logical sequence from the image taken at the lowest magnification to the image obtained at the highest one. It is suggested not to observe the next image until having completely explored all the connections and explanations of the previous one. It is also possible to go back from an image at higher magnification to other at loweer magnification clicking on the navigation arrow that appears under it.

• In some images, it is also possible to observe the preparation as examined with crossed polarizers at the extinction position. For that, it is necessary to click on the text “POLARIZED LIGHT", located down on the left of the image. This type of observation is very useful for the study of the preparations of vegetal organs, since it allows clearly delimiting the birefringent structures, such as the lignified ones (elements of the xylem, sclerenchyma...), that appear shining on the dark bottom. Clicking on the arrow down in the image, we can return to the normal image.

• In addition, a Self-evaluation system has been included within the index. It has been developed by means of the application Hot Potatoes 6 and of an option recently incorporated to the Atlas, the "Virtual Microscopy". The "Virtual Microscopy" allows the user examining extensive zones of the preparation in the same way that he/she did using the microscope (for example, we can increase or diminish the field of the observed preparation or to move inside it). For that, we can accede to a new frame from the connection that appears in the index, where the susceptible areas of this exploration are observed in form of icons. Clicking on each of them, the result is shown in a new page.