Brain & Cognition 🧠 Flashcards
(193 cards)
the retina prre-processes the rod and cone signals
via bipolar cells to ganglion cells
ganglion cells
pass the preprocessed signals to the brain
long wavelength cone
responds well to red or yellow
medium wavelength cone
responds best to green less to yellow
short wavelength cone
responds best to blue
rhodopsin
translaties light into the closing of Na+ channels so that the membrane hyperpolarizes > neural signal that is sent to bipolar >? ganglion cell
retinal color blindness
absence of a particular cone type
fovea
cup shaped highest density photoreceptors, mainly cones; sharpest vision, color vision
age related macular degeneration
older age, smoking diet, genetic , loss of central vision, acqity loss, pigment epithelium (receptors) are lost due to accumulation of toxic products,
dry macular degeneration
damage to the fovea, yellow deposits (drum) accumulate in macula
why are rods and cones not switched with the photoreceptors placement?
the pigment epithelium prevents light scatter, so that sharper vision is possible (also provides nutrients )
RGC fibers lying on top causes the blind spot
place where all retinal ganglion cell fibers pass through the eye (optic disk)), and no receptors are present
glaucoma
increase of pressure inside of the eye, damage of nerve fibers of the RGC’s : optic nerve, loss of peripheral vision first (but may vary), treatment : eyedrops, surgery
the need for data compression
optic nerve only contains 1 mil nerve fibers and data compression gebeurt in het oog van 130 mil.
how is retinal information compressed?
the photoreceptor responds to light by hyperpolarization (closing of Na+ channels) to dark by depolarisation (opening of Na+ channels) : a graded potential signal
the one and off systems originate at the level of the bipolar cells
the receptors make sign conserving synapse with the off bipolar cells and sign inverting synapses with on bipolar cells that have an unique neurotransmitter receptor site (mGluR6)
horizontal cells
receive signals from widespread region of receptors, . they provide negative feedback on the receptors
the retinal network
from luminance (receptors) to contrast (bipolar and ganglion cells). from graded potentials (hyper/depolarization) in cones, bipolars, horizontals, to action potentials (in ganglion cells, because of long axons)
retinal ganglion cells
encode contrast, luminance is discarded
Hermann grid illusion
‘side effect’ of the data compression by the retina (and higher visual areas), comparable to artefacts caused bt JPEG compression
how the retina solves the data compression problem
- contrast coding (ON and OFF center surround Retinal Ganglion cells)
- rod signals pass through the same RGC’s as cone signals
- colours are coded as R/G, G/R or B/Y contrasts
- parallel pathways (M/P>P/M) for color //bw, detail/global
how do rods work? because they are mainly working in the dark
- rods mostly connect to rod bipolar cells
- they do not connect directly to RGC’s
- they connect to cone driven bipolar cells via the amacrine cells
- so bipolar and RGC’s have (overlapping) receptive fields from cone and rod iputs
- horizontal cells also give the rods a suppressive surround > Mexican hat RF profile
diagram of primary rod-driven signal pathways via four synapses
rods -> rod bipolar cell (RBC) -> all amacrine cell (AII-AC) -> OFF or ON (cone) bipolar cell (OFF-BC, ON-BC) -> OFF or ON ganglion cell (OFF-GC, ON-GC).
rod cell
sensitive enough to respond to a single photon of light and is about 100 times more sensitive to a single photon than cones.
- sensative to single wavelength (hence are useless for color vision)
- rod bipolar receive input from multiple rods, hence have larger receptive fields
- therefore, vision in the dark is less sharp (also because rods sit mainly peripheral)