Why should there be a handbook of sensory physiology, and if so, why now' The editors have asked this question, marshalled all of the arguments that seemed to speak against their project, and then discovered that most of these arguments really spoke in favor of it: there seemed to be no doubt that the attempt should be made and that it should be made now. No complete overview of sensory physiology has been attempted since Bethe's "Handbuch der normalen und pathologischen Physiologie", nearly forty years ago. Since then, the field has evolved with unforeseen rapidity. Although electric probing of single peripheral nerve fibers was begun by ADRIAN and ZOTTERMAN as early as 1926, in the somatosensory system, and extended to single optic nerve fibers by HARTLINE in 1932, the real upsurge of such single-unit studies has only come during the last two decades. Single-cell electrophysiology has now been applied to all sensory modalities and on almost every conceivable phylogenetic level. It has begun to clarify peripheral receptor action and is adding to our. understanding of the central processing of sensory information. In parallel with these developments, there have been fundamental studies of the physics and chemistry of the receptors themselves: these studies are leading to insights into the mechanisms of energy transduction and nerve impulse initiation.
Authors, Editors and Affiliations
Department of Physiology, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, USA
W. R. Loewenstein,
Werner R. Loewenstein
The Thomas C. Jenkins Department of Biophysics, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA
Department of Biology, Tufts University, Medford, USA
Mary Ella Feinleib
King Gustaf V Research Institute, Stockholm 60, Sweden
Åke Flock
Lab. of Neurophysiology, NINDS, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, USA
M. G. F. Fuortes
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Medical College of Phennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
David E. Goldman
Department of Neurology, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, USA
Harry Grundfest,
David Nachmansohn
The Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovoth, Israel
Aharon Katchalsky
Department of Physiology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA
Charles K. Knox,
Avraham Oplatka
Academic Faculty of Biophysics, The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA
Leo E. Lipetz,
Carlo A. Terzuolo
Department of Anatomy, The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center of the Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, USA
Bryce L. Munger
Department of Physiology, Royal Veterinary College, Stockholm 50, Sweden
David G. R. Ottoson
Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, Lafayette, USA
William L. Pak
Department of Physiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, USA
Gordon M. Shepherd
Laboratory of Psychophysics, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
S. S. Stevens
Laboratoire de Neurophysiologie cellulaire du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris 16e, France
Ladislav Tauc
Institute of Physiology and Medical Biophysics, Biomedical Center, Uppsala, Sweden
Torsten Teorell
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Principles of Receptor Physiology
Authors: Richard A. Cone, George M. Curry, Mary Ella Feinleib, Åke Flock, M. G. F. Fuortes, David E. Goldman, Harry Grundfest, Marcus Jacobson, Aharon Katchalsky, Charles K. Knox, Leo E. Lipetz, Werner R. Loewenstein, Bryce L. Munger, David Nachmansohn, Avraham Oplatka, David G. R. Ottoson, William L. Pak, Gordon M. Shepherd, S. S. Stevens, Ladislav Tauc, Torsten Teorell, … Carlo A. Terzuolo
