This volume contains the papers presented during the Neurophysiology Session of the first Orbis Scientiae of the Center for Theoretical Studies, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida. With this first Orbis which met from January 7 - 11, 1974, the Center for Theoretical Studies has inaugerated a new set of annual gatherings devoted to the natural sciences and to problems on the "interface" of science and society. The content of the talks presented ranged over a wide variety of topics in neurophysiology, biophysics and biochemistry. A number of the talks concerned various aspects of the brain and its functions. Recent results were also presented on the physics and chemistry of membranes. The papers in the volume are presented in the order in which they were originally delivered. Special thanks are due to Mrs. Helga Billings, Miss Sara Lesser and Mrs. Jacquelyn Zagursky for the typing of the manuscript and for their efficient and cheerful attention to the details of the conference.

The Center for Theoretical Studies of the University of Miami has been the host of annual winter conferences whose content has expanded from the particular topic of symmetry principles in high energy physics to encompass the bases and relationships of many branches of know ledge. The scope of the Tenth Coral Gables Conference on Fundamental Interactions included astrophysics, atomic and molecular physics, fundamental theories of gravi tation, of electromagnetism, and of hadrons, gauge theories of weak and electromagnetic interactions, high energy physics, liquid helium physics, and theoretical biology. The range of topics is partially represented by the scientific talks which form this book. The tangible fruits of the conference are these papers; the intangible ones are the changes of outlook which the participants experienced and the new appreciation they gained of the basic unity of all knowledge. Historically, the early Coral Gables Conferences witnessed the introduction of the concept of the quark and the attempts to formulate a unification of the in ternal and space-time symmetries of the elementary particles, while later ones were the initial forums for new unified theories of interactions and for the ideas of scaling, light-cone dominance, and partons."