REGULATION AND CONTROL IN PHYSIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS.

The papers referred to here are gouped in the proceedings of the conference under the heading: Neurons and Neuron Populations. The first (commentary) paper outlines the problem as follows: One of the major tasks of neurophysiological research is to explain global behavior in terms of phenomena occurring at lower hierarchical levels of organization. Towards this end, two complementary approaches have been used: a) analysis of input-output relations of individual neurons, to ascertain how the spike output of a neuron is determined by the collective input it receives from other neurons; b) analysis of interneuronal relations (cell-cell or cell-population), to ascertain how the spike outputs of individual neurons collectively furnish inputs to other neurons in a network and thus determine the population activity level. These two approaches are related to the effects of convergence and divergence, respectively. Following is a list of titles and authors: Neurons and Neuron Populations: Commentary. By Morton I. Cohen. Local and Global Information Used in the Cerebellar Coordination System. By Robert F. Erlandson. Transfer Characteristics of Parallel Populations of Heterogeneous Neural Elements. By W. J. Williams and W. J. Heetderks. Dynamics of Networks Which Generate Respiratory Rhythmicity. By Morton I. Cohen. On Stochastic Dynamics of a Neuron and a Kind of Neuron Group. By Yasuo Matsuyama, Katsuhiko Shirai, and Kageo Akizuki.