Colour centre This is more important for perceiving the colour of objects and pictures. The double-opponent cells are receptive to opposite inputs from different cone cells in the retina. This is ideal for identifying contrasting colours, such as red and green. [1] Double-opponent cells are particularly important in computing local cone ratios from visual information from their receptive fields. Single opponent colour-sensitive neurons can be divided into two categories depending on the signals they receive from the cone cells: L-M neurons and S/(L+M) neurons. The three types of cone cells, small (S), medium (M), and long (L), detect different wavelengths across the
George Wald methods to extract pigments from the retina. Then, using a spectrophotometer, they were able to measure the light absorbance of the pigments. Since the absorbance of light by retina pigments corresponds to the wavelengths that best activate photoreceptor cells, this experiment showed the wavelengths that the eye could best detect. However, since rod cells make up most of the retina, what Wald and his colleagues were specifically measuring was the absorbance of rhodopsin, the main photopigment in rods. Later, with a technique called microspectrophotometry, he was able to measure the absorbance directly from cells, rather than from an extract of