ABSTRACT
The present account reviews some of the progress made recently towards understanding better the processing of visual information in the peripheral visual system of insects. To limit the scope, it concentrates mainly upon the group that has been the subject of the most intensive recent work, and that is better understood from most aspects: the Diptera, or true flies. The region discussed is the retina proper and first synaptic neuropile, the lamina, and thus encompasses visual processing up to the level of third-order visual neurones. A number of reviews give either wider or fuller accounts of the same area: those of Laughlin (1980) and Järvilehto (1984) are particularly wide-ranging, Shaw (1981) discusses the neural connections in detail, whilst Meinertzhagen & Frohlich (1983) and Meinertzhagen (1984) provide introductions to aspects of neural development. A recent NATO conference volume features this area (Ali, 1984).
