The Visual System

The International Society for Clinical Electroretinography provides a link between scientists who are enlarging our understanding of the normal functioning of the visual pathway, and clinicians who investigate and treat visual disturbances. The chief function of the Society is to organise symposia, where, with skill born of long practice, the participants obtain the benefits of both social and scientific contact, without detriment to either. The result ing spread of information is documented both in the society's Newsletter, and by the publication of volumes such as this, the record of the 9th Symposium held at Brighton in 1971. This meeting was a joint Symposium of the ISCERG and the International Union of Physiological Sciences. The subjects covered represent merely the interests of the organisers. The biophysical studies are represented by chapters on such divers topics as the x-ray diffraction of receptor membranes and impedance properties of outer limb suspensions. Other papers deal with the problems of maintaining the retina in vitro in a physiological condition. Papers describing techniques for investigating the functional properties of the visual system shade into those which describe new aspects of human disease. In the past such serendipity has been of value as evidenced by compal-ison between this and previous volumes. In 1965 the physiological section of the Proceedings was largely devoted to a new elec trical response, the evoked potential of the visual cortex.

Inhalt

1. Phototransduction Mutants of Drosophila Melanogaster.- 2. The Effects of Intracellular Ca2+ on the Light Response and on Light Adaptation in Limulus Ventral Photoreceptors.- 3. Some Observations on the Structure of Receptor Outer Limbs.- 4. Light-Induced Condùctance Changes in Rod Outer Segments.- 5. Structure of the Retinal Membrane Containing the Visual Pigments.- 6. Receptor Potentials from a Visual Pigment with Two Thermally Stable States.- 7. Ion Gradients and Metabolic Activity in the Generation of Cone and Rod Responses.- 8. The role of metarhodopsin Ill in the recovery of the PIII photoresponse of isolated rat retina after an intense light exposure.- 9. Light Adaptation of the late receptor potential in the cat retina.- 10. Effect of aspartate on the ERG of the isolated rabbit retina.- 11. Electrical and Metabolic Manifestations of Receptor and Higher-Order Neuron Activity in Vertebrate Retina.- 12. Electrophysiological Application of the Living Extracorporeal Bovine Eye.- 13. Directionally Selective Units in the Cat's Lateral Geniculate Nucleus.- 14. Proximal Negative Response of the Inner Plexiform Layer.- 15. A Case of Amblyopia; Electrophysiology and Psychophysics of Luminance and Contrast.- 16. Theoretical Models of the Generation of Steady-State Evoked Potentials, their Relation to Neuroanatomy and their Relevance to Certain Clinical Problems.- 17. Evoked Potentials to Changes in the Chromatic Contrast and Luminance Contrast of Checkerboard Stimulus Patterns.- 18. Scotopic Visibility Curve in Man Obtained by the VER.- 19. A Clinical Method for Obtaining Pattern Visual Evoked Responses.- 20. Cone Spectral Sensitivity Studied with an ERG Method.- 21. Monocular Contribution to Binocular Vision in Normals and Amblyopes.- 22. A Comparison ofElectrophysiological and Psychophysical Temporal Modulation Transfer Function of Human Vision.- 23. Local Scotopic Responses in ERG and VER.- 24. Photopic Spectral Sensitivity of the Chicken Retina in Various Conditions of Adaptation. An Electroretinographic Study.- 25. Retinal Sensibility to Drugs in Normal Rats and Carriers of Inherited Retinal Degeneration.- 26. New Method of Stimulation for the Study of Photoreceptors.- 27. Luminance-Duration Relationship in the Human ERG.- 28. ERG, VER and EEG in Twelve Children with Late Infantile Neuronal Lipidosis.- 29. Changes in the Oscillatory Potential in Relation to Different Features of Diabetic Retinopathy.- 30. Clinical and Electrophysiological Observations on Genetic Carriers of Retinitis Pigmentosa in a Family (Pedigree Tt) showing Sex-Linked Inheritance.- 31. The Macular and Paramacular Local Electroretinograms of the Human Retina and their Clinical Application.- 32. Electrophysiological Findings in Patients Treated with Indomethacin.