Vision Flashcards
What is sensation?
- how cells of the nervous system detect stimuli in the environment
- how they transduce (convert) these signals into a change in membrane potential and neurotransmitter release
What is perception?
- the conscious experience and interpretation of sensory information
What are sensory neurons?
- specialized cells that detect a specific category of physical events
What are the categories of physical events sensory neurons detect?
- the presence of specific molecules
- the presence or absence of physical pressure
- the temperature
- the pH of a liquid (whether it is acidic or alkaline)
- electromagnetic radiation (light)
What do sensory neurons do?
- have specialized receptors that transduce sensory stimuli into a change in membrane potential
- many don’t have axons or action potentials
- they all release neurotransmitter
How do sensory neurons that don’t have action potentials release neurotransmitter?
- in a graded fashion, dependent on their membrane potential
- more depolarized they are, the more neurotransmitter they release
- more hyperpolarized, less neurotransmitter release
What are photoreceptor cells?
- sensory neurons responsible for vision
- transduce the electromagnetic energy of visible light into a change in membrane potential
- affects how much neurotransmitter they release
- do not have action potentials
What are opsins?
- light-sensitive proteins
- in photoreceptor cells
- metabotropic receptors
- sensitive to light because they bind a molecule of retinal, which changes shape in response to light
- change in the shape of retinal is what activates this metabotropic receptor
What is retinal?
- small molecule
- attaches to the opsin proteins in the photoreceptor cells in our eyes
- absorbs the electromagnetic energy of visible light that allows us to see
What happens when retinal absorbs light?
- molecule changes shape
- activates the opsin protein
- this launches an intracellular g protein signaling cascade that changes the membrane potential of the photoreceptor cell
- affecting how much neurotransmitter it releases
What are the 2 configurations of the retinal molecule?
- bent (not activated)
- straight (activated by light)
How many photoreceptor cells contribute to our conscious perception of vision?
4
What are the 4 types of photoreceptor cells that contribute to our conscious perception of vision?
- red cone cells
- green cone cells
- blue cone cells
- rod cells
What type of metabotropic opsin protein do red cone cells express?
- red cone opsin
What type of metabotropic opsin protein do green cone cells express?
- green cone opsin
What type of metabotropic opsin protein do blue cone cells express?
- blue cone opsin
What type of metabotropic opsin protein do rod cells express?
- rhodopsin opsin
Which photoreceptor cells were the last to evolve?
- rod cells
Which photoreceptor cells are more sensitive to light?
- rod cells
- 100 times more sensitive to light than the cone cells
What is visible light (the visible spectrum)?
- electromagnetic energy that has a wavelength between 380 and 760 nm
- detect this light using 1 rod cell and 3 cone cells
What is the order of the electromagnetic spectrum from high energy/small wavelength to low energy/long wavelengths?
- gamma rays
- x rays
- ultraviolet rays
- visible light spectrum
- infrared rays
- radar
- tv and radio broadcast bands
What order did the cone cells evolve?
- red
- blue
- green
What are blue cone opsins?
- most sensitive to short wavelengths of light
- 430 nm
What are green cone opsins?
- most sensitive to medium wavelengths of light
- 535 nm
What are green red opsins?
- most sensitive to long wavelengths of light
- 575 nm
What is orange?
- 610 nm
- activates green cones 13% of their maximum level
- activates red cones 75% of their maximum level
What is colour perception?
- a function of the relative rates of activity across the three types of cone cells
- colours are discriminated by the ratio of activity across these cells
- key consideration for our brain for identifying colour is how much each type of cone cell is activated relative to its maximum level
Which cone opsins are more sensitive to light in general (order)?
- green
- red
- blue
What are the primary colours of light?
- red
- green
- blue
What colour do we get when we mix red and blue light?
- magenta
What colour do we get when we mix red and green light?
- yellow
What colour do we get when we mix green and blue light?
- cyan
What do we get when we mix all coloured light?
- white light (sunlight)
What are the 3 dimensions of our perception of light and colour?
- brightness
- saturation
- hue
What is brightness?
- intensity (luminance, amount)
- how much light we have
- 0-100% (bottom to top)
What is saturation?
- purity (in terms of wavelength mixture)
- 0-100% (middle to side)
What is hue?
- dominant wavelength (colour)
- 0-360 degrees
What happens when brightness is 0?
- the image is completely black
- hue and saturation have no impact without brightness
What happens when there is bright light and saturation is 0?
- middle of the colour cone where there is an equal contribution from all visible wavelengths
- grayscale (black and white), because all wavelengths are present in equal amounts
What happens when saturation is more than 0?
- the hue indicates the colour that the light is saturated with
What are the types of colour vision deficiency?
- protanopia
- deuteranopia
- tritanopia
- achromatopsia
What is protanopia?
- absence of the red cone opsin
- trouble distinguishing colours in the green-yellow-red spectrum
- visual acuity is normal
- red cone cells switch to using the green cone opsin
What happens when there are mutations in the red cone opsin?
- simple mutations in the red cone opsin produce less pronounced deficits in color vision
- hinder color vision if they make it act more like the green opsin (in terms of what light it can detect)
- 1% of males
What percent of the population has protanopia?
- 1% of males
What is deuteranopia?
- absence of the green cone opsin
- trouble distinguishing colors in the green-yellow-red spectrum
- visual acuity is normal
- green cone cells switch to using the red cone opsin
What happens when there are mutations in the green cone opsin?
- simple mutations in of the green cone opsin produce less pronounced deficits in color vision
- 6% of males
What percent of the population has deuteranopia?
- 1% of males
What is tritanopia?
- absence of the blue cone opsin
- blue cone cells do not compensate for this in any way
- blue cone opsin is not that sensitive to light anyway
- visual acuity is not noticeably affected
- no mutation
What percent of the population has tritanopia?
- 1% of the population
What is achromatopsia?
- true colour blindness
- caused by mutations in the g protein signaling cascade that is used by all the cone opsins
Why are cone cells useful?
- there are three of them, and they are sensitive to different wavelengths, which is necessary for color vision
What are the parts of the eye?
- conjunctiva
- sclera
- cornea
- iris
- pupil
- lens
- vitreous humor
- retina
- fovea
- optic disk
What is the sclera?
- opaque and does not permit entry of light
- the tough, outer white of the eye
What is the conjunctiva?
- a mucous membrane that lines the eyelid
What is the cornea?
- the outer, front layer of the eye
- focuses incoming light a fixed amount
- bends light and focuses it
- can get thicker or thinner
- surrounds eye and holds into place
- transparent
What is the iris?
- a ring of muscle
- the contraction and relaxation of this muscle determines the size of the pupil
What is the pupil?
- determines how much light enters the eye
What happens when the iris contracts?
- pupil small
- little light in
What happens when the iris relaxes?
- pupil bigger (dilates)
- lot of light in
What is the lens?
- consists of several transparent layers
- we change the shape of this lens to focus near versus far
What is accommodation?
- when the lens changes shape to focus near or far
What is the retina?
- the interior lining (furthest back part) of the eye
- photoreceptor cells are located in the furthest back layer of the retina
- periphery of the retina only contains rod cells