Principles and Practice of Clinical Electrophysiology of Vision, second edition


Book Description

The long-awaited second edition of an authoritative reference on electrophysiologic vision testing, including detailed information on techniques and problems, basic physiology and anatomy, theoretical concepts, and clinical findings; with extensive new material. This authoritative text is the only comprehensive reference available on electrophysiologic vision testing, offering both practical information on techniques and problems as well as basic physiology and anatomy, theoretical concepts, and clinical correlations. The second edition, of the widely used text, offers extensive new material and updated information: 65 of the 84 chapters are completely new, with the changes reflecting recent advances in the field. The book will continue to be an essential resource for practitioners and scholars from a range of disciplines within vision science. The contributions not only cover new information—important material that is likely to become more important in the next decade—but also offer a long-range perspective on the field and its remarkable development in the last century. After discussing the history and background of clinical electrophysiology, the book introduces the anatomy of the retina and principles of cell biology in the visual pathways at the molecular, physiological, and biochemical levels. It relates these new findings to the techniques and interpretations of clinical tests, including the electro-oculogram (EOG), electroretinogram (ERG), and visual evoked potentials (VEP), which are discussed in detail, as are equipment, data acquisition and analysis, principles and protocols for clinical testing, diseases and dysfunction, and animal testing. Notable additions for this edition include chapters on the origin of electroretinogram waveforms, multifocal techniques, testing in standard laboratory animals, recent advances in analysis of abnormalities in disease, and the applications of these techniques to the study of genetic abnormalities.










Retinas of Fishes


Book Description

A considerable amount of information on the retinal morphology in fishes has been accumulating during the past century. Among the vertebrates, fishes are a highly successful group, both in number of species and in the adaptive radiation of forms. For instance, 415 teleost families are now recognised (GREENWOOD, ROSEN, WEITZMANN and MYERS, 1966), and the 20,000 odd fish species mentioned in text-books have been by far out numbered. The fish retina also shows considerable variations, in conformity with the extreme morphological diversification reached by piscine forms, in colonising all conceivable aquatic habitats and developing a wide spectrum of life habits. We intend to illustrate this in the present Atlas, a collection of short texts and photomicrographs of the retina from about one hundred fish families. This Atlas is intended also to fulfil other purposes. One of them is to present in a phylogenetic order the rather scattered data on fish retinal structure, with appropriate illustrative material; another is to assist the visual physiologist or biochemist in his search for a retina with particular morpholog ical features compatible with his specific requirements. In other words, what we aim at is a ready pool of information for laymen, students, and specialists of varied interests. The material used for this Atlas comes from various sources.




Creating Modern Neuroscience: The Revolutionary 1950s


Book Description

For modern scientists, history often starts with last week's journals and is regarded as largely a quaint interest compared with the advances of today. However, this book makes the case that, measured by major advances, the greatest decade in the history of brain studies was mid-twentieth century, especially the 1950s. The first to focus on worldwide contributions in this period, the book ranges through dozens of astonishing discoveries at all levels of the brain, from DNA (Watson and Crick), through growth factors (Hamburger and Levi-Montalcini), excitability (Hodgkin and Huxley), synapses (Katz and Eccles), dopamine and Parkinson's (Carlsson), visual processing (Hartline and Kuffler), the cortical column (Mountcastle), reticular activating system (Morruzzi and Magoun) and REM sleep (Aserinsky), to stress (Selye), learning (Hebb) and memory (HM and Milner). The clinical fields are also covered, from Cushing and Penfield, psychosurgery and brain energy metabolism (Kety), to most of the major psychoactive drugs in use today (beginning with Delay and Deniker), and much more.The material has been the basis for a highly successful advanced undergraduate and graduate course at Yale, with the classic papers organized and accessible on the web. There is interest for a wide range of readers, academic, and lay because there is a focus on the creative process itself, on understanding how the combination of unique personalities, innovative hypotheses, and new methods led to the advances. Insight is given into this process through describing the struggles between male and female, student and mentor, academic and private sector, and the roles of chance and persistence. The book thus provides a new multidisciplinary understanding of the revolution that created the modern field of neuroscience and set the bar for judging current and future advances.