Vision Flashcards
What is an interesting fact about human visual spectrum?
Mammalian vision was developed under water, therefore eyes only developed to perceive light that could penetrate the ocean
What is the difference between retinal arteries and veins?
Arteries have smooth muscle to allow them to constrict
In imaging they appear thicker
What is unusual about the organisation of the retinal cells?
Light must pass through the ganglion cells and bipolar cells before reaching the photoreceptors to then be transmitted through bipolar and ganglion cells
How how does light get to the photoreceptor cells?
Rather than passing through every other cell membrane the light will travel through the muller cells
What are the types of cones and what light do they specifically detect?
Short cones - blue light
Medium cones - green light
Long cones - red light
What is the distribution of rods and cones in the retina?
Centre (fovea) - higher proportion of cones
Periphery - higher proportion of rods
Give two examples of colour blindness
Red-green blindness (most common)
Blue-yellow (rare, thought to be related to bipolar dysfunction)
What are the four types of red-green blindness?
Deuteranomaly
Protanomaly
Protanopia
Deuteranopia
What is deuteranomaly?
The most common type of red-green colour blindness that makes green look more red
Mild and does not interfere with life too often
What is protanomaly?
A type of red-green colour blindness that makes red look more green and less bright
Mild type of colour blindness
What forms of colour blindness make it so that you cannot distinguish between red and green at all?
Protanopia and deuteranopia
Which gender is colour blindness more frequent in?
Men as it is an X linked condition and men only have one X chromosome
Describe the photoreceptor structure
Outer segment (contains membrane shelves lined with rhodopsin or iodopsin)
Inner segment (dense with mitochondria)
There will be an outer limiting membrane
Then the nucleus
Then the synaptic body
List the steps to the dark phase of phototransduction
Guanylate cyclase is constitutively active
cGMP is constantly formed in the outer segment
This opens cation channels in the OS membrane (called a dark current)
OS depolarises
Depolarisation spreads to IS
VGCC open on presynaptic membrane
Glutamate enters the synaptic cleft
mGLUR6 receptors on the bipolar cell activate
These receptors are GPCR which link to G alpha o (inhibitory)
This inhibits TRPM1 in ON bipolar cells
Hyperpolarisation of bipolar cell
Switches off
What are the steps of the light phase of phototransduction?
Light enters the retina
Causes opsin to isomerise and activate transducin
This activates phosphodiesterase (PDE)
PDE breaks down cGMP
CNGAs close - reduced dark current
OS hyperpolarises
This spreads to IS
VGCC close in presynaptic membrane
Glutamate release is decreased
MGLUR6 receptors inactivate
G alpha o stops inhibiting TRPM1
These channels open and Na2+ enters
On bipolar cells depolarise
What is a positive after image?
This can happen if you close your eyes or the lights go out suddenly after looking at something bright
It is when you can still see an image but in the absence of photoreceptor stimulation and it will be the same colour as the actual image you were looking at
What is happening when you see an after image?
The photoreceptive pigment is still being rebuild and replaced after having been broken down and so you continue to see the previous image
What do bipolar cell do in the dark?
ON bipolar cells hyperpolarise
OFF bipolar cells depolarise
What is the neurotransmitter responsible for bipolar cells depolarising or not?
Glutamate
ON - mGLuR6
OFF - iGLuR2
What do bipolar cells do in the light?
ON bipolars depolarise
OFF bipolars hyperpolarise
What is lateral inhibition?
When light falls directly onto a bipolar cell the adjacent bipolar cells will be inhibited (hyperpolarised)
This is important for image processing and to prevent things looking blurry
How are signals propagated on from bipolar cells?
Bipolars will send graded potentials to a neighbouring retinal ganglion cell (RGC) via glutamate release
These activate iGLuR1 receptors and when enough Na2+ is reached the action potential will happen
Are cells myelinated in the retina?
Cells don’t tend to be myelinated in the retina as this can lead to problems with vision
RGCs aren’t myelinated until they reach the optic nerve, if there is abnormal and early myelination then this can increases a persons blind spot