Lecture	Textbook	Topic
1	1. Vision overview	Introduction & outline of course content
2	2. Design of Eyes	Overview of visual pathways
3	3. Retinal structure	Principles of organization of the visual system
4	4. Image capture	Structure/function relationships of retinal neurons
5	5. Photopic pathways	Regional specialization, design principles of sensory systems
6	6. Scotopic pathways	Speed, sensitivity, reliability, adaptability of retinal neurons
7	7. Mesopic pathways	Spatial, temporal, filtering of retinal neural image
8	8. Photoreceptor function	Chromatic filtering of retinal neural image
9	9. Retinal organization	Retinal sampling, undersampling, aliasing
10	10. Photoreceptor traits	Neural & optical limits to visual acuity
11	11. Retinal cell types	Optic pathways, central projection of optic axons
12	12. Central projection	Topographic distortion of neural image in the brain
13	13. Oculomotor control	Neural image processing by lateral geniculate nucleus
14	14. Neural images and visual perception	Receptive fields of visual cortical neurons
15		Information processing by visual cortex.

• The First Steps in Seeing by Robert W. Rodieck (available at the IMU and other bookstores). Chapters 1-14 are required reading for the course--START READING EARLY!

• Visual Perception: A Clinical Orientation by Steven H. Schwartz (on reserve in Optometry Library). Chapters 3 (review), 7 (background), 11, 12, 13 are relevant to the course.
• Eye, Brain and Vision by David Hubel (an exceptionally easy read by a Nobel Laureate).

• V648 Slides: Part 1
• V648 Slides: Part 2

• Videotape Eyes by F.S. Werblin describes spatial and temporal processing of visual signals in the retina. A companion text, Synaptic connections, receptive fields, and patterns of activity in the tiger salamander retina, published in Invest. Ophthal. Vis. Sci., v32 (1991) is also available.
• Videotape by Helga Kolb describes functional organization of the retina.
• Acuity Perimetry and the Sampling Theory of Visual Resolution by L.N. Thibos, in Optometry & Vision Science (1998) 75:399-406 describes a clinical application of V648 material.

The questions that I will be addressing can be simply stated. When we look at the outside world, the primary event is that light is focused on an array of 125 million receptors in the retina of each eye. The receptors, called rods and cones, are nerve cells specialized to emit electrical signals when light hits them. The task of the rest of the retina and of the brain proper is to make sense of these signals, to extract information that is biologically useful to us. The result is the scene as we perceive it [consciously or sub-consciously], with all its intricacy of form, depth, movement, color, and texture. We want to know how the brain accomplishes this feat.

1. Provide a comprehensive treatment, emphasizing general principles, without exhaustive or encumbering detail.
2. Be up-to-date, yet encourage an appreciation for the sequence of discoveries which led to the present state of knowledge.
3. Give an accurate and truthful account without avoiding issues which are controversial or uncertain.
4. Be scientific, but include clinical examples when appropriate for illustrating general principles.
5. Strive to impart in the student a "mental model" of how the eye and brain extract biologically useful information from the retinal image. This model will form a basis for thinking about how the normal visual system works and the rationale for clinical diagnostic tests of abnormal visual function.