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The butterfly compound eye consists of multiple ommatidia, each of which consist of nine photoreceptor cells (numbered from R1–R9), and primary and secondary pigment cells. [5] Nymphalid butterflies have the simplest eye ommatidium structure, consisting of eight photoreceptor cells (R1–R8) and a tiny R9 cell organized into a different tier.
A photoreceptor cell is a specialized type of neuroepithelial cell found in the retina that is capable of visual phototransduction. The great biological importance of photoreceptors is that they convert light (visible electromagnetic radiation ) into signals that can stimulate biological processes.
The first parietopsin was found in the photoreceptor cells of the lizard parietal eye. The lizard parietopsin is green-sensitive (λ max = 522 nm), and despite it is a c-opsin, like the vertebrate visual opsins, it does not induce hyperpolarization via a Gt-protein, but induces depolarization via a Go-protein. [83] [84]
There are two types of opsin involved in vision; c-opsins, which are associated with ciliary-type photoreceptor cells, and r-opsins, associated with rhabdomeric photoreceptor cells. [53] The eyes of vertebrates usually contain ciliary cells with c-opsins, and (bilaterian) invertebrates have rhabdomeric cells in the eye with r-opsins.
The phototransduction mechanism in these cells is not fully understood, but seems likely to resemble that in invertebrate rhabdomeric photoreceptors. In addition to responding directly to light, these cells may receive excitatory and inhibitory influences from rods and cones by way of synaptic connections in the retina.
Visual phototransduction is the sensory transduction process of the visual system by which light is detected by photoreceptor cells (rods and cones) in the vertebrate retina.A photon is absorbed by a retinal chromophore (each bound to an opsin), which initiates a signal cascade through several intermediate cells, then through the retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) comprising the optic nerve.
There are about 0.7 to 1.5 million retinal ganglion cells in the human retina. [2] With about 4.6 million cone cells and 92 million rod cells, or 96.6 million photoreceptors per retina, [3] on average each retinal ganglion cell receives inputs from about 100 rods and cones.
Melanopsin is a type of photopigment belonging to a larger family of light-sensitive retinal proteins called opsins and encoded by the gene Opn4. [5] In the mammalian retina, there are two additional categories of opsins, both involved in the formation of visual images: rhodopsin and photopsin (types I, II, and III) in the rod and cone photoreceptor cells, respectively.