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Phototransduction Occurs at The Retina

Phototransduction occurs when light hits photoreceptors in the retina, causing them to convert light energy into electrical signals. There are two main types of photoreceptors: rods, which function in low light for night vision, and cones, which are responsible for color vision and acute vision during daylight. The signals are then processed by bipolar and ganglion cells before being transmitted to the brain by the optic nerve.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
116 views13 pages

Phototransduction Occurs at The Retina

Phototransduction occurs when light hits photoreceptors in the retina, causing them to convert light energy into electrical signals. There are two main types of photoreceptors: rods, which function in low light for night vision, and cones, which are responsible for color vision and acute vision during daylight. The signals are then processed by bipolar and ganglion cells before being transmitted to the brain by the optic nerve.

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Kathleen Russell
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Phototransduction Occurs at the Retina

Once light hits the retina, photoreceptors convert the light


energy
into electrical signals. Light energy part of Spectrum. For
humans, visible light is limited to electromagnetic
energy with waves that have a frequency between 400 and
700nm.
Cones: active at higher light levels (photopic vision), are capable of color vision and
are responsible for high spatial acuity. Depolarized in darkness.

Rod: responsible for vision at low light levels (scotopic vision). They do not
mediate color vision, and have a low spatial acuity.
Phototransduction takes place when light hits the retina, the
sensory organ of the eye.
There are five types of neurons in the retinal layers:
1. photoreceptors
2. bipolar cells
3. ganglion cells
4. amacrine cells
5. horizontal cells

The fovea is the areas of most acute vision, and they form the
center of the visual field.
When you look at an object, the lens focuses the object image
on the fovea. Light from that section of the visual field falls on
the fovea and is in sharp focus.

The image falling on the retina is upside down. Subsequent


visual processing by the brain reverses the image again so that
we perceive it in the correct orientation.

Sensory information about light passes from the photoreceptors


to bipolar neurons, then to a layer of ganglion cells. The axons
of ganglion cells form the optic nerve, which leaves the eye at
the optic disk. Because the optic disk has no photoreceptors,
images projected onto this region cannot be seen, creating
what is called the eye’s blind spot.
Bipolar cell is inhibitor cell, inhibits ganglion cell.
Rods: detect light
Electrical Signals
Electrical Signals
Photoreceptors are the neurons that convert light energy into
electrical signals.

There are two main types of photoreceptors:


1. rods
2. cone
Rods function well in low light and are used in night vision, when
objects are seen in black and white rather than in color.

Cones are responsible for high-acuity vision and color vision during
the daytime, when light levels are higher.

The fovea, which is the region of sharpest vision, has a very high
density of cones.

Rods and Cones have the same basic structure


(1) an outer segment whose tip touches the pigment epithelium of
the retina
(2) an inner segment that contains the cell nucleus and organelles
for ATP and protein synthesis
(3) a basal segment with a synaptic terminal that releases
glutamate onto bipolar cells. Electrical Signals
Light-sensitive visual pigments are bound to the disk
membranes in outer segments of photoreceptors.
 Rods have one type of visual pigment,

rhodopsin.
 Cones have three different pigments that are

closely related to rhodopsin.

The visual pigments of cones are excited by


different wavelengths of light, allowing us to see in
color. White light is a combination of colors, as
demonstrated when you separate white light by
passing it through a prism. The eye contains cones
for red, green, and blue light. Each cone type is
stimulated by a range of light wavelengths but is
most sensitive to a particular wavelength.

Red, green, and blue are the three primary colors


that make the colors of visible light, just as red,
blue, and yellow are the three primary colors that
make different colors of paint. The color of any
object we are looking at depends on the

w a v e l e n g t h s o f l i g h t r e fl e c t e d b y t h e o b j e c t .

There are three types of cone pigment, each with a

characteristic light absorption spectrum. Rods ar e


for

black and white vision in low light.

Photoreceptors are the neurons that convert light


energy into electrical signals.
Signal Processing Begins in the Retina
Visible light causes the photosensitive pigments to alter the membrane potentials
of photoreceptors.

Many photoreceptors may converge onto one single bipolar neuron.


Convergence is minimal in the fovea, where some photoreceptors have a 1:1
relationship with their bipolar neurons. Convergence increases in the peripheral
vision at the outer edges of the retina.
Bipolar Cells
Glutamate release from photoreceptors onto bipolar
neurons begin signal processing.

Ganglion Cells

Each ganglion cell receives information from a particular


area of the retina. These areas, known as visual receptive
fi e l d s .   T h e r e c e p t i v e fi e l d o f a g a n g l i o n c e l l n e a r t h e f o v e a
is quite small.
Only a few photoreceptors are associated with each
ganglion cell,
and so visual acuity is greatest in these areas . At the
edge of the retina, multiple photoreceptors converging
onto a single ganglion cell results in vision that is not as
sharp.

Axon of the ganglion _>>give the optic nerve

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