This series of concise essays on Enteroceptors is designed to interest the gradu ate student and to stimulate research. Even before the advent of electrophysiological studies, classical physiological techniques had shown the essence of the role of many of the enteroceptors. Thus the monitoring influence of the cardiovascular mechanoreceptors on the heart and on the systemic vascular resistance, the role of the arterial chemoreceptors in hypoxia and the influence of the so-called Hering Breuer stretch receptors on breathing had all been documented. The pioneering work of ADRIAN, BRONK,...

This volume is a collection of essays which attempts to summarize the recent progress in the field of photoreceptor and retinal physiology. Reflecting the way in which research is organized, each author reports on the studies performed with the techniques with which he is most familiar: morpholo gical, chemical or physiological. The first chapters describe the structure of visual cells and the histological architecture of the retina. Next comes a summary of the laws governing photochemical reactions and a report on the biochemistry of photopigments. Four articles cover the optical properties...

The present volume covers the physiology of the visual system beyond the optic nerve. It is a continuation of the two preceding parts on the photochemistry and the physiology of the eye, and forms a bridge from them to the fourth part on visual psychophysics. These fields have all developed as independent speciali ties and need integrating with each other. The processing of visual information in the brain cannot be understood without some knowledge of the preceding mechanisms in the photoreceptor organs. There are two fundamental reasons, ontogenetic and functional, why this is so: 1) the...

The originality of this volume is to reveal to the reader the fascination of some unfamiliar sensory organs that are sometimes ignored and often misunderstood. These receptors have only recently been identified and their functional specificity is in some cases still a matter for discussion. The four classes of sensory organs considered here differ widely from one another in many respects. One might even say that the only thing they have in common is that they belong to cold-blooded vertebrates. These classes are: 1. the directionally sensitive lateral-line mechanoreceptors of fishes and amphi...

This section will consider the structure and function of muscle receptors, as well as the central nervous system mechanisms with which they are concerned. In volume I of this Handbook, receptor mechanisms are discussed in detail. Also, the crustacean stretch receptor and the frog muscle spindle have been considered. The present section will be concerned with vertebrate muscle receptors with an emphasis on mammals. Muscle receptors provide interesting examples of specialized mechanorecep tors. The muscle spindle is a striking case of a receptor which is regulated in its function by the central...

Morphology and physiology are two fields which cannot be separated. This statement needs to be amplified: purely factual results of a morphological or physiological nature only have real value when they are gained in the context of certain guiding, embracing questions. By themselves they are mostly of little value, because only a guiding hypothesis or theory is of any importance. Equally, a physiological question will always raise questions as to the morphological substrate, and vice versa. Thus, Wiedemann's discovery, for instance, that the visual cells in each ommatidium of the dipterans...

In the comparative physiology of photoreception by the Protista and the invertebrates two aspects are emphasized: (1) the diversity of visual processes in these groups and (2) their bearing upon general mechanisms of photoreception. Invertebrates have evolved a far greater variety of adaptations than vertebrates modifications aiding survival in the remarkably different biotopes they occupy. The number of species in itself suggests this multiformity; each of them has peculiarities of its own, in morphology as well as in physiology and behavior. But these special adaptations are variations on a...

Volume VII, Part 6 brings to a conclusion the Handbook of Sensory Physiology, the publication of which has spanned 9 years. In the General Preface of Volume I it was stated that: "The purpose of this handbook is not encyclopedic completeness, nor the sort of brief summaries provided by periodic annual reviews. " The Editorial Board and the editors hope that this golden mean has been achieved: An absorbing, thorough, but nevertheless exemplary presentation should, with the aid of relevant examples, enable the reader to become accustomed with the numerous facets of the sensory system without...

Radiation can only affect matter if absorbed by it. Within the broad range of 300-1000 nm, which we call "the visible," light quanta are energetic enough to produce excited electronic states in the atoms and molecules that absorb them. In these states the molecules may have quite different properties from those in their dormant condition, and reactions that would not otherwise occur become possible. About 80 % of the radiant energy emitted by our sun lies in this fertile band, and so long as the sun's surface temperature is maintained at about 6000 C this state of affairs will continue. This...