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Dark Adaptation (dark + adaptation)
Selected AbstractsImpaired dark adaptation in polycythemia.ACTA OPHTHALMOLOGICA, Issue 1 2000Improvement after treatment ABSTRACT. Purpose: To determine if dark adaptation is reduced in individuals with polycythemia and if so whether there is any improvement in dark adaptation after treatment. Methods: Dark adaptation was recorded monocularly by automatic dark adaptometry in ten consecutive patients with polycythemia before and after treatment. Analogue investigations were performed in 31 healthy control subjects. Results: Dark adaptation was markedly impaired in the patients as compared with the control subjects. After reduction of the red cell count and normalization of the hematocrit and hemoglobin the dark adaptation was markedly improved. There was no significant change in dark vision in the control subjects negating a confounding learning effect. Conclusion: The findings indicate a sustained but reversible neuronal hypofunction secondary to polycythemia. As the rheological abnormality was normalized, dark adaptation was improved, probably secondary to normalized microcirculation within the retina or the brain, or both, possibly with reactivation of formerly inactive neuronal cells. [source] The translocation of signaling molecules in dark adapting mammalian rod photoreceptor cells is dependent on the cytoskeletonCYTOSKELETON, Issue 10 2008Boris Reidel Abstract In vertebrate rod photoreceptor cells, arrestin and the visual G-protein transducin move between the inner segment and outer segment in response to changes in light. This stimulus dependent translocation of signalling molecules is assumed to participate in long term light adaptation of photoreceptors. So far the cellular basis for the transport mechanisms underlying these intracellular movements remains largely elusive. Here we investigated the dependency of these movements on actin filaments and the microtubule cytoskeleton of photoreceptor cells. Co-cultures of mouse retina and retinal pigment epithelium were incubated with drugs stabilizing and destabilizing the cytoskeleton. The actin and microtubule cytoskeleton and the light dependent distribution of signaling molecules were subsequently analyzed by light and electron microscopy. The application of cytoskeletal drugs differentially affected the cytoskeleton in photoreceptor compartments. During dark adaptation the depolymerization of microtubules as well as actin filaments disrupted the translocation of arrestin and transducin in rod photoreceptor cells. During light adaptation only the delivery of arrestin within the outer segment was impaired after destabilization of microtubules. Movements of transducin and arrestin required intact cytoskeletal elements in dark adapting cells. However, diffusion might be sufficient for the fast molecular movements observed as cells adapt to light. These findings indicate that different molecular translocation mechanisms are responsible for the dark and light associated translocations of arrestin and transducin in rod photoreceptor cells. Cell Motil. Cytoskeleton 65: 785,800, 2008. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Reminiscences of a journeyman scientist: Studies of thermoregulation in non-human primates and humansBIOELECTROMAGNETICS, Issue 8 2008Eleanor Reed Adair Abstract After graduating from Mount Holyoke College in 1948 where I majored in experimental psychology I worked at the College for 2 years with the Johns Hopkins Thermophysiological Unit. My graduate work later at the University of Wisconsin, centering on sensory psychology, culminated in my 1955 PhD thesis on human dark adaptation. I continued work in sensory psychology later with Neal Miller at Yale and then moved to the John B. Pierce Foundation,a Yale affiliate,where I began the studies of thermoregulation that constitute the center of my scientific career. Those studies were largely,later wholly,conducted using microwave energy as a thermal load and were thus published in Bioelectromagnetics even as I played an active role in the Bioelectromagnetics Society. In the beginning this work was centered on the responses of Squirrel Monkeys to thermal loads. Later, serving as Senior Scientist at the Air Force Research Laboratory at San Antonio, I completed an extensive analysis of thermal regulation in humans. I consider this work of special note inasmuch as the extraordinary human thermoregulatory ability was surely among the attributes that were paramount in initially separating humans from the other anthropoid primates. Bioelectromagnetics 29:586,597, 2008. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] 4141: Visual phenotyping at the "Institut Clinique de la Souris"ACTA OPHTHALMOLOGICA, Issue 2010MJ ROUX Purpose Visual diseases come in many flavors, with a large variety of affected tissues (eye anterior segment, retina, optic nerve, cortex ,), ages of onset, rate of progression and causal factors. In Western countries, if the majority of these diseases are now curable, millions of people are still affected by blindness or low vision, as many retinal diseases (age-related macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma,) still lack efficient treatments. In a facility devoted to mouse phenotyping as the Mouse Clinic Institute (MCI), it is thus of major importance to propose an efficient visual phenotyping platform, to pick up visual defects in screened mutants, to assess the beneficial effects of potential treatments or the eventual adverse effects of drugs targeting the CNS. Methods Methods: Mouse mutant lines from the Eumodic European project, as well as lines from specific academic projects, go through clinical observation (slit lamp, fundus imaging) in the context of a behavioral phenotyping pipeline, or are assessed in more details with angiography, optomotor response, electroretinography, retinal histology and/or immunohistochemistry. Results To illustrate the possibilities offered by the MCI visual phenotyping platform, we will present results obtained from various projects, as well as the validation of electroretinography protocols to follow dark adaptation and the effect of acute drug injections. Conclusion In an environment allowing for an in depth phenotyping, from behavior to biochemistry, metabolism and cardiology, the MCI visual phenotyping platform provides a comprehensive set of tests to get the most out of genetically modified mice. [source] Neuronal adaptation in the human retina: a study of the single oscillatory response in dark adaptation and mesopic background illuminationACTA OPHTHALMOLOGICA, Issue 7 2007Anna-Lena Lundström Abstract. Purpose:, The single oscillatory response in complete dark adaptation (DA) and the effect of mesopic illumination were studied in order to investigate the behaviour of the neuronal adaptation system as reflected in the oscillatory potentials (OPs) of the electroretinogram (ERG). Methods:, The rapid oscillatory and slow components (a- and b-waves) of single ERGs were simultaneously recorded in nine healthy, young subjects in response to first flash after both DA of 45 mins and light adaptation to a steady background light (BGL) of low mesopic intensity. Results:, Two low-amplitude oscillatory peaks were present in the single response to the first flash recorded in DA. There was no increase in the summed amplitudes of the OPs (SOP) when recorded in the single response to the first flash in mesopic BGL. However, the morphology of the oscillatory response altered. The first OP was reduced and a third oscillatory peak appeared. Conclusions:, We conclude that early, scotopically related OPs may indeed be activated in the single response to the first flash in DA (i.e. without using conditioning flashes). Secondly, on its own, adaptation to mesopic BGL does not seem to trigger enhancement of the overall oscillatory response. The altered single oscillatory response to the first flash apparent in the mesopic BGL comprises a third cone-associated OP and seems to reflect a reorganization of the retinal microcircuitry from a predominantly rod-activated system to one of mixed rod/cone neuronal activity in the inner part of the retina at the level at which individual OPs have their respective origins. [source] Impaired dark adaptation in polycythemia.ACTA OPHTHALMOLOGICA, Issue 1 2000Improvement after treatment ABSTRACT. Purpose: To determine if dark adaptation is reduced in individuals with polycythemia and if so whether there is any improvement in dark adaptation after treatment. Methods: Dark adaptation was recorded monocularly by automatic dark adaptometry in ten consecutive patients with polycythemia before and after treatment. Analogue investigations were performed in 31 healthy control subjects. Results: Dark adaptation was markedly impaired in the patients as compared with the control subjects. After reduction of the red cell count and normalization of the hematocrit and hemoglobin the dark adaptation was markedly improved. There was no significant change in dark vision in the control subjects negating a confounding learning effect. Conclusion: The findings indicate a sustained but reversible neuronal hypofunction secondary to polycythemia. As the rheological abnormality was normalized, dark adaptation was improved, probably secondary to normalized microcirculation within the retina or the brain, or both, possibly with reactivation of formerly inactive neuronal cells. [source] Quantification of dark adaptation dynamics in retinitis pigmentosa using non-linear regression analysisCLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL OPTOMETRY, Issue 6 2004Rokiah Omar PhD Purpose: Non-linear regression analysis was used to determine dark adaptation indices in people with retinitis pigmentosa and in control subjects. Methods: Dark adaptation data were collected for 13 people with retinitis pigmentosa and 21 controls using the Goldmann-Weekers Dark Adaptometer. Data were analysed using an exponential non-linear regression model and dark adaptation indices derived. The results were compared to age-related values. Results: The mean cone threshold of the group with RP (4.73 ± 0.19 log units) was significantly greater than that found in the control group (3.69 ± 0.12 log units). The rate of cone dark adaptation in the RP group was not significantly different from that of the control group. The a break in the RP group (6.46 ± 0.70 minutes) was delayed when compared to the control group (4.29 ± 0.21 minutes) and the rate of rod dark adaptation in the RF' group was slower (10 ± 2 per cent per minute) than that of the control group (15 ± 1 per cent per minute). Conclusions: This study has shown that a relatively simple data analysis can provide a more quantitative and intuitive description of dark adaptation rates in people with retinal disease. This technique will enable more effective use of dark adaptometry as a supplement to objective electrophysiology, when monitoring people with retinitis pigmentosa. [source] |