Adaptation (eye) opsin photopigment. The various cone cells are maximally sensitive to either short wavelengths (blue light), medium wavelengths (green light), or long wavelengths (red light). Rod photoreceptors only contain one type of photopigment, rhodopsin, which has a peak sensitivity at a wavelength of approximately 530 nanometers which corresponds to blue-green light. A minor mechanism of adaptation is the pupillary light reflex, adjusting the amount of light that reaches the retina. In response to varying ambient light levels, rods and cones of eye function both in isolation and in tandem to adjust the visual system. Changes in the sensitivity of rods and
Retina in "Retina der Wirbelthiere" ("The Retina of Vertebrates"). George Wald, Haldan Keffer Hartline, and Ragnar Granit won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their scientific research on the retina. A recent University of Pennsylvania study calculated that the approximate bandwidth of human retinas is 8.75 megabits per second, whereas a guinea pig's retinal transfer rate is 875 kilobits per second. MacLaren & Pearson and colleagues at University College London and Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, in 2006, showed that photoreceptor cells could be transplanted successfully in the mouse retina if donor cells were at a critical developmental