The Importance Of Photoreceptors

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Introduction: Photoreceptors are specialized neurons in the eye “retina” due to them having the role of photo-transduction which is the conversion of light to electrical signals which reach to the rod, cone, and photosensitive ganglion cells in the back of the eye via retina. The visual cycle is the biological is basically the conversion from photons into electrical signals that are sent to the brain through the retina as a receptor. The vital biological importance of the photoreceptors is the conversion of light to signals that can stimulate biological processes and the perception of the sight sense. In more details, the photoreceptor proteins have a role in the triggering of the change in the cell’s membrane potential.
The rod
There are 3 different types of cone cells in the human retina “the L, M, and S cones” that can respond only in certain wavelengths of light “short, medium, and long lengths”. Through the opponent process the color experience is measured from those three distinctive signals. With the knowledge of the univariance principle, we need to always take into account that the firing cells always depend on the number of photons absorbed. The three responses of the three different cones are determined by the respective photoreceptor proteins having the ability to absorb the photons of the many different wave lengths on light. So, for example, an S cone cell contains a photoreceptor protein that more readily absorbs short wavelengths of light (i.e., more "blue"). Light of a longer wavelength can also produce the same response, but it must be much darker to do
Cones are all concentrated at on area which is the fovea, meanwhile the rods are dense in all areas and not centered in the macula latea resulting in a wider visual spectrum. Another factor is that rods are much more sensitive than all types of cones. For instance, a human can perceive a human’s body shape and movement without colors in dark light levels due to the rods being stimulated rather than cones.
2.1) Effect of Genders on Rods and Cones
“It is generally admitted that with woman the powers of intuition, of rapid perception and perhaps of imitation, are more strongly marked than in man: but some, at least, of these faculties are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a pas” – Charles Darwin

Can we link that women have better sense of smell and taste than men and imply it to sight. Because as proven, females stimulate sense of smell and taste better than men thus leading the females to be a priority when chosen for a taste/odour tester

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