Active alignment of vertebrate cone and rod photoreceptor waveguides: might this serve as a useful fiber-optics model?

Jay M. Enoch

doi:10.1117/12.828470

21 August 2009 Active alignment of vertebrate cone and rod photoreceptor waveguides: might this serve as a useful fiber-optics model?

Jay M. Enoch

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 7428, Current Developments in Lens Design and Optical Engineering X; 74280F (2009) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.828470
Event: SPIE Optical Engineering + Applications, 2009, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Some years ago, the speaker demonstrated that vertebrate retinal photoreceptors are fiber optics elements and waveguides, and he succeeded in defining many of their properties. For a summary of much of this research, please see the reference to Enoch and Tobey listed below (Reference 4). Included are studies of photo-receptor alignments and maintenance of receptor alignments across the retina in normal and abnormal human eyes. With very rare exceptions, rod and cone photoreceptors across the retina align remarkably and precisely with the center-of-the-exit-pupil-of-the-optics-ofthe- eye throughout the lifetime of the individual! And within a modest period of time (a day or a bit more), it proved possible to alter that photoreceptor alignment by physically displacing the pupillary aperture; and with recentration of the eye pupil, these alignments recovered their original state. Here, the author asks, "Might advantage be gained by developing alignment sensitive, photoactivated, waveguide/fiber optic units? That is, might comparable mechanisms be adapted in a useful manner to non-biological fiber-optics applications? Since such characteristic responses have been clearly of great value for biological species; might similar designs serve other important roles?"

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Jay M. Enoch "Active alignment of vertebrate cone and rod photoreceptor waveguides: might this serve as a useful fiber-optics model?", Proc. SPIE 7428, Current Developments in Lens Design and Optical Engineering X, 74280F (21 August 2009); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.828470

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KEYWORDS

Eye

Retina

Fiber optics

Waveguides

Receptors

Visualization

Cones

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