The light sense is conceivably the key sense in both the animal and the plant kingdom. Vision research, undoubtedly a fast-growing field, is providing impressive results -- thanks to modern theoretical and methodological advances. The approach of biophysics and neuroscience seems to be of great benefit and, for this reason, the present book gives an outline of recent acquisitions and updated advanced methods concerning this approach. Visual mechanisms and processes are analysed at several (molecular, cellular, integrative, computational and cognitive) levels by different methodologies (from molecular biology to computation) applied to different living models (from protists to humans, via invertebrates and lower vertebrates).

The optics of animal eyes, M.F. Land; rhodopsin-like proteins - the universal and probably unique proteins for vision, P. Gualtieri; the molecular design of a visual cascade - molecular stages of phototransduction in drosophila, R. Paulsen et al; molecular changes during primary visual pathway development, K.L. Moya et al; colour vision and retinal randomness of the Japanese yellow swallowtail butterfly, Papilio Xuthus, K. Arikawa et al; patch-clamping solitary visual cells to understand the cellular mechanisms of invertebrate phototransduction, C. Musio; phototransduction in retinal rods and cones, Y. Koutalos et al; formation of "ON" and "OFF" ganglion cell mosaics, L.M. Chalupa; endogenous nitric oxide modulates signal transmission from photoreceptors to on-center bipolar cells in the rabbit retina, B. Lei and I. Perlman; now you see it, now you don't - shunting inhibition in early vision, L. Borg-Graham et al; visual perceptual learning, N. Berardi and A. Fiorentini; functions of the primate temporal lobe cortical visual areas in invariant visual object and face recognition, E.T. Rolls; vector code in neuronal networks, E.N. Sokolov; and other papers.