RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Background and bleaching equivalence in steady-state adaptation of vertebrate rods
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 1056
OP 1063
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.07-04-01056.1987
VO 7
IS 4
A1 KN Leibovic
A1 JE Dowling
A1 YY Kim
YR 1987
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/7/4/1056.abstract
AB We have investigated background and bleaching adaptation in vertebrate rods by intracellular recording in the retina of Bufo marinus. Backgrounds and bleaching produce adaptation in photoreceptors and lead to a shift and a compression of the response operating range. Threshold elevation due to backgrounds follows the Rose-DeVries rule at low intensities and the Weber-Fechner rule at high intensities. Threshold elevation due to bleaching is linear almost up to 17% bleached pigment and exponential thereafter. An equivalence can be established between bleaching and backgrounds with respect to threshold elevation, on the one hand, and with respect to response compression, on the other. These equivalences are the same within experimental error. The equivalence, moreover, appears to extend to the complete response curve. These results have implications for psychophysics as well as for photoreceptor transduction.