The basis of learning appears to be a network of interconnected adaptive elements (such as those found in the brain) by means of which transforms between inputs and outputs are performed. By adaptive I mean that the element can change in some systematic manner and in so doing alter the transform between input and output. In living systems, transmission within the neural network involves cpded nerve impulses and other physical chemical processes that form reflections of sensory stimuli and incipient motor behavior. The properties of the transmission network become significant determinants of...

This is the second volume to be based on a series of symposia being held periodically on the neurobiology of conditioning. The first, entitled Conditioning: Representation of Involved Neural Functions was based on a symposium held in Asilomar, Cali fornia, in October 1982 (Woody, 1982). The present volume is based on a sym posium, organized by D. Alkon and C. Woody, held at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts in November 1983. This series of sym posia and their publication are more than justified by the extraordinary progress be ing made during recent years in all...

I would like first to thank Charles Woody and his organizing committee for arranging the symposium on the "Cellular Mechanisms of Conditioning and Behavioral Plasticity," which was also a satellite meeting of the International Union of Physiological Sciences 30th International Congress. The proceedings of this symposium are represented by the chapters that follow. During the 1970s, Dr. Woody and co-workers were able to carry out a remarkable series of microelectrode studies, both intracellular and extracellular, of cortical nerve cells during conditioning of the eye-blink response to sound in...