PHGY 209 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Retinal Ganglion Cell, Opsin, Rhodopsin
15 Feb 2018
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Document Summary
Inside the opsin there are chromophores that capture light. For night vision or seeing in the dark. More sensitive to scattered light (capture scattered photons) No color vision- one type of opsin. Faster response time (more clearer, easily see things) Going from bright light to dark light environment. There is a change in the # of photons -> contrast. In bright light: rods are saturated; so many photons that rhodopsin are depleted and inactive, cones are active. In dark light: for immediate time, use the cones to navigate in the dark (temporary blindness, slowly the rhodopsin molecules begin to build up & put back together (depleted because striked by light molecules) In the dark environment: cones are inactive while rods are active (rhodopsin molecules have been put back together) Bright environment: temporary blindness until cones takes over, rods begin to go nuts when light hits them and they must undergo confirmation changes where they will stop working.
