Presents some of the latest in vitro techniques that can be used to study the vertebrate central nervous system--particularly the brain slice technique. The advent of this new era in neuroscience led to a number of difficult test limitations in the use of this technique, including problems associated with the study of properties in large three-dimensional neural networks and processes lasting longer than 18-24 hours. The authors present solutions to these problems and indicate how it is possible to push in vitro techniques toward their known limits. Invaluable, this work will serve as a stepping-stone to further research and development activity in the neuroscience field.