Basic and Clinical Perspectives in Vision Research : A Celebration of the Career of Hisako Ikeda

I have been asked to write a brief foreword to this volume honoring Hisako Ikeda, providing a review of the accomplishments in our field over the past four decades, when Hisako was an active participant. This I am delighted to do. It has been a most exciting time in vision research and Hisako has been right in the middle of much of the excitement, publishing on a wide variety of topics and providing much new data and many new insights. Hisako's research career can be divided by decades into four quite distinct areas of inquiry. In the 1950s, as a student in Japan, her research interests were psychophysical in nature, and she was concerned with visual illusions, figural aftereffects, and motion detec­ tion. In the 1960s, after her move to London, she began electrophysiological studies. Much of her work in the 1960s was concerned with the electroretinogram (ERG), its components, and the use of this electrical response for evaluating spectral sensitivities of the eye and retinal degenerations. This work represented the beginning of her electrodiagnostic clinical work, which continued until her retirement. Front Matter....Pages i-xii Front Matter....Pages 1-1 A Study of Pupil Response Components in Human Vision....Pages 3-18 Factors Regulating the Blood Flow in the Optic Nerve Head....Pages 19-33 Front Matter....Pages 35-35 The Architecture of Functional Neural Circuits in the Cat Retina....Pages 37-51 Rhodopsin Gene Mutations Causing Retinitis Pigmentosa....Pages 53-62 The Regulatory Role of Dopaminergic Pathways in the Mammalian Outer Retina....Pages 63-75 Spatio-Chromatic Signalling in the Vertebrate Retina....Pages 77-94 On-Bipolar Cells, Visual Sensitivity and the b-Wave....Pages 95-102 Effects of GABA Receptor Agonists on Cholinergic Amacrine Cells in the Rabbit Retina....Pages 103-113 Ramifications of Gaba Receptor Subtypes on Retinal Information Processing....Pages 115-123 Postnatal Development of Neurotransmitter Systems in the Mammalian Retina....Pages 125-136 Impaired Dynamics of Retinal Processing in Dopaminergic Deficiency States in Man and Monkey....Pages 137-145 Front Matter....Pages 147-147 The Role of the Pretectum in the Pupillary Light Reflex....Pages 149-159 From Spatiotemporal Tuning to Velocity Analysis....Pages 161-175 Binocular Integration in the Visual Cortex....Pages 177-195 Visual Cortical Plasticity and Neurotrophic Factors....Pages 197-209 Residual Visual Function in the Absence of the Human Striate Cortex....Pages 211-223 Back Matter....Pages 225-231