Sensory Transduction

Present knowledge of the mechanisms underlying any single sensory modality is so massive as to discourage effort directed towards completeness. The idea underlying the structure of this volume on "Sensory transduction" was to select just a few topics of general interest, which are currently being investigated and for which a reasonably clear picture is now available. During the last five years there has been a revolution in the way sensory physi­ ologists think about transduction, and a series of exciting advances have been made in understanding the basic processes of photo transduction, chemotransduction and mechan­ otransduction. It is clear that in many cases the fundamental processes by which nature attains optimization of performance are similar, and that they have much in common with more general processes of signal recognition by living structures. The molecular events underlying the detection of photons by visual cells, the recognition of a given molecule by a chemoreceptor, or the level of a hormone in the extracellular fluid by a target cell, are all very similar, and involve the activation of a sequence of events leading to a secon d messenger. The 20 papers that form the present volume cover various topics in the field of sensory transduction. They originate from the lectures, seminars and discussions which made up the XVIII Course of the International School of Biophysics held in Erice, 9th - 19th June 1988.

Inhalt

Ions and Channels.- A Primer of Permeation and Gating.- Interactions among Cations in Current Conduction through the Stretch-Activated Channel of the Frog Oocyte.- Mechanotransduction.- M echanoreception.- Electrical Properties of the Basolateral Membrane of Hair Cells: A Review.- Chemotransduction.- The Chemistry of Chemoreception in Vertebrate Sensory Systems.- Antennae and Noses: Their Sensitivities as Molecule Detectors.- Molecular and Cellular Receptors in Olfaction: A Novel Model under Investigation.- Phototransduction.- Microvillar Photoreceptor Cells of Invertebrates.- Anatomy and Physiology.- The Rhodopsin-Transducin-cGMP-Phosphodiesterase Cascade of Visual Transduction.- Guanylate Cyclase of Retinal Rod Outer Segment.- Physical Studies of ?-?? Subunit Interactions of the Rod Outer Segment G Protein, Gt: Effects of Monoclonal Antibody Binding.- Comparative Effects of Phosphodiesterase Inhibitors on Detached Rod Outer Segment function.- Cation Selectivity of the cGMP-Gated Channel of Mammalian Rod Photoreceptors.- The Effect of pH on the Cyclic GMP-Activated Conductance in Retinal Rods.- The Cytosolic Concentration of Free Ca2+ in Vertebrate Rod Outer Segments.- Control of Intracellular Calcium in Vertebrate Photoreceptors.- Light Adaptation in Retinal Rods of the Newt.- Differences in Response Kinetics and Absolute Sensitivity between Red-, Blue- and Ultraviolet-Sensitive Cones of the Tiger Salamander.- A Presynaptic Action of Glutamate on Cone Photoreceptors.- Properties of Electrogenic Glutamate Uptake in Retinal Glia.- The Photoresponses of the Trout Pineal Cells.- Contributors.- List of Participants.