Book excerpt: Biochemistry of Characterised Neurons provides a report on the progress made in the analysis of the biology of specific neurons in the central nervous system. This book emphasizes the biochemical, morphological, and functional aspects of characterized neurons, including ways and sophisticated techniques of isolating them. This publication is divided into 11 chapters. The first chapter evaluates the relevance of working with single neurons. Chapters 2 to 6 discuss specific, characterized, invertebrate neurons containing one of the putative neurotransmitter substances. Chapter 7 deals with the biochemistry of a unique vertebrate (Torpedo) cholinergic system that enables pure cholinergic neuronal cell bodies and endings to be analyzed separately. The sensitive radiochemical procedures used to analyze transmitter substances and transmitter enzymes, and how they can be adapted to map the distribution of transmitters in individual neurons of Aplysia, are discussed in Chapter 8. Chapter 9 describes methods for the analysis of specific cells in the retina, while Chapters 10 and 11 focus on the analysis of proteins within defined neurons. This text is beneficial to biochemists and students interested in analyzing neurons.