Morphometry and stereology in biology and medicine using confocal microscopy

In the last decade, microscopy has advanced more rapidly than any previously. Among the more exciting advances has been the development of optical laser confocal microscopy. Unlike the microscopical instruments capable of higher resolution, such as electron microscopy, atomic force and scanning probe microscope technologies, the confocal microscope has several incomparable advantages over these alternative microscopies. The supreme advantage is that processes in living tissues can be observed with confocal microscopy. The additional advantages of confocal microscopy results from the coherence of laser emissions giving superior resolution performance and minimal depth of field which, most importantly, allows `optical sectioning´ visually to disect biological structure even within sections