candidacy question

[Jacob Easaw]

One of the profs who will be examining me for my candidacy exam told me
that he wants me to understand how to do PCR and its overall importance to
neuroscience.  As I do whole cell patch recordings from neurons, my
knowledge of PCR is minimal (actually, less than that).  Does anyone out
there have a fairly straight forward reference I can get a hold of that
explains this? 

Thanks,

Jay