Principles of receptor physiology,

by Werner R. Loewenstein

Why should there be a handbook of sensory physiology, and if so, why now' The editors have asked this question, marshalled all of the arguments that seemed to speak against their project, and then discovered that most of these arguments really spoke in favor of there seemed to be no doubt that the attempt should be made and that it should be made now. No complete overview of sensory physiology has been attempted since Bethe's "Handbuch der normalen und pathologischen Physiologie", nearly forty years ago. Since then, the field has evolved with unforeseen rapidity. Although electric probing of single peripheral nerve fibers was begun by ADRIAN and ZOTTERMAN as early as 1926, in the somatosensory system, and extended to single optic nerve fibers by HARTLINE in 1932, the real upsurge of such single-unit studies has only come during the last two decades. Single-cell electrophysiology has now been applied to all sensory modalities and on almost every conceivable phylogenetic level. It has begun to clarify peripheral receptor action and is adding to our. understanding of the central processing of sensory information. In parallel with these developments, there have been fundamental studies of the physics and chemistry of the receptors these studies are leading to insights into the mechanisms of energy transduction and nerve impulse initiation.

600 pages, Paperback

First published April 19, 1971

About the author

Dr. Loewenstein was born in 1926 in Spangenberg, Germany. His family escaped Hitler’s Germany in 1939, emigrating to Chile. He had a keen interest in science and became a world-renowned biophysicist after immigrating into the United States.

Dr. Loewenstein received a B.Sc. (physics), B.Sc. (biology) in 1945, and Ph.D. (physiology) in 1950 from the University of Chile. From 1951 to 1957 he worked at the University of Chile, first as an instructor, and then as an associate professor of physiology. In 1954 he joined the University of California in Los Angeles as a resident zoologist. In 1957 Dr. Loewenstein was a professor of physiology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University and from 1967 to 1971 he served as the Director of the Laboratory of Cell Physics. He moved to Florida in 1971 to take a position as professor of physiology and biophysics and department chairman at the University of Miami School of Medicine.

In 1994 Dr. Loewenstein and his wife, Dr. Birgit Rose Loewenstein, established the Laboratory of Cell Communication at the MBL, devoted to the study of intercellular communication. Their research focused on the cell-to-cell channel, a membrane channel built into the junctions between cells. Dr. Loewenstein became a member of the MBL Corporation in 1961 and served on the MBL Investment Committee in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was named a MBL Society Emeritus member in 2011.

His recent book, Physics in Mind, was chosen by Physics World Magazine as the 2013 Best Book of Physics. Dr. Loewenstein traveled the world as an invited speaker at international scientific conferences, and loved to take sailing trips on his cutter Pequod. He is survived by his wife of 43 years, Birgit Rose Loewenstein of Sedona, son Stewart of Denver, daughter Claudia of Dallas, and four grandchildren.