Journal
FRONTIERS IN CELLULAR NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 17, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fncel.2023.1132230
Keywords
melanopsin; ganglion cells; intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs); visual perception; pupil
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Traditional photoreceptors utilize retinal and opsin protein for light absorption and spectral sensitivity, while intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) absorb blue light with melanopsin. These ipRGCs mediate various visual and non-visual functions, including photo-entrainment, sleep, cognition, and conscious visual perception. Previous research used chromatic adaptation to identify retinal and cortical responses from ipRGCs, and this study developed a clinically expedient method to measure human ipRGCs' full-field visual threshold, which could be used in detecting and monitoring ocular and neurologic diseases.
Traditional photoreceptors utilize the chromophore retinal to absorb light coupled with a unique opsin protein to specify receptor spectral sensitivity. Light absorption triggers a cascade of events transducing light energy to neural signals beginning with graded potentials in receptors (rods and cones) and bipolar cells in outer and middle retina eventuating in action potentials at the inner retinal amacrine and ganglion cell levels. Unlike traditional photoreceptors, ganglion cells in the inner retina (intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells, ipRGCs) absorb short wavelength, blue light utilizing their photopigment melanopsin. Assessment across multiple species show that the ipRGCs mediate myriad visual and non-visual functions including photo-entrainment and circadian rhythms, the pupillary light reflex, sleep, alertness, cognition, mood, and even conscious visual perception. Some ipRGC functions can persist despite blindness in animal models and humans exemplifying their multidisciplinary control of visual and non-visual functions. In previous research we used selective chromatic adaptation (blue stimulus on a bright amber field) to suppress input from rods, red and green sensitive cones to identify retinal and cortical responses from ipRGCs. Herein we used a similar approach, coupled with a filter to block input from blue sensitive cones, to develop a clinically expedient method to measure the full-field, putative visual threshold from human ipRGCs. This metric may expand our ability to detect, diagnose and monitor ocular and neurologic disease and provide a global retinal metric of ipRGCs as a potential outcome measure for studies using gene therapy to arrest and/or improve vision in hereditary retinal diseases.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available