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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.
Rods are a little longer and leaner than cones but have the same basic structure. Opsin-containing disks lie at the end of the cell adjacent to the retinal pigment epithelium, which in turn is attached to the inside of the eye. The stacked-disc structure of the detector portion of the cell allows for very high efficiency. Rods are much more ...
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.
Photoreceptor proteins are light-sensitive proteins involved in the sensing and response to light in a variety of organisms. Some examples are rhodopsin in the photoreceptor cells of the vertebrate retina , phytochrome in plants, and bacteriorhodopsin and bacteriophytochromes in some bacteria .
drawing of a cone cell showing the invaginations of the outer segment that form the 'discs' Disc shedding is the process by which photoreceptor cells in the retina are renewed. The disc formations in the outer segment of photoreceptors, which contain the photosensitive opsins , are completely renewed every ten days.
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.
Melanopsin structure. These photoreceptor cells project both throughout the retina and into the brain. They contain the photopigment melanopsin in varying quantities along the cell membrane, including on the axons up to the optic disc, the soma, and dendrites of the cell.