Adaptation (eye)

In visual physiology, adaptation is the ability of the retina of the eye to adjust to various levels of light. Natural night vision, or scotopic vision, is the ability to see under low-light conditions. In humans, rod cells are exclusively responsible for night vision as cone cells are only able to function at higher illumination levels. Night vision is of lower quality than day vision because it is limited in resolution and colors cannot be discerned; only shades of gray are seen. In order for humans to transition from day to night vision they must undergo a dark adaptation period of up to two hours in which each eye adjusts from a high to a low luminescence 'setting', increasing sensitivity hugely, by many orders of magnitude. This adaptation period is different between rod and cone cells and results from the regeneration of photopigments to increase retinal sensitivity. Light adaptation, in contrast, works very quickly, within seconds. In visual physiology, adaptation is the ability of the retina of the eye to adjust to various levels of light. Natural night vision, or scotopic vision, is the ability to see under low-light conditions. In humans, rod cells are exclusively responsible for night vision as cone cells are only able to function at higher illumination levels. Night vision is of lower quality than day vision because it is limited in resolution and colors cannot be discerned; only shades of gray are seen. In order for humans to transition from day to night vision they must undergo a dark adaptation period of up to two hours in which each eye adjusts from a high to a low luminescence 'setting', increasing sensitivity hugely, by many orders of magnitude. This adaptation period is different between rod and cone cells and results from the regeneration of photopigments to increase retinal sensitivity. Light adaptation, in contrast, works very quickly, within seconds. The human eye can function from very dark to very bright levels of light; its sensing capabilities reach across nine orders of magnitude. This means that the brightest and the darkest light signal that the eye can sense are a factor of roughly 1,000,000,000 apart. However, in any given moment of time, the eye can only sense a contrast ratio of 1,000. What enables the wider reach is that the eye adapts its definition of what is black. The eye takes approximately 20–30 minutes to fully adapt from bright sunlight to complete darkness and becomes 10,000 to 1,000,000 times more sensitive than at full daylight. In this process, the eye's perception of color changes as well (this is called the Purkinje effect). However, it takes approximately five minutes for the eye to adapt from darkness to bright sunlight. This is due to cones obtaining more sensitivity when first entering the dark for the first five minutes but the rods taking over after five or more minutes. Cone cells are able to regain maximum retinal sensitivity in 9–10 minutes of darkness whereas rods require 30–45 minutes to do so. Dark adaptation is far quicker and deeper in young people than the elderly. The human eye contains two types of photoreceptors, rods and cones, which can be easily distinguished by their structure. Cone photoreceptors are conical in shape and contain cone opsins as their visual pigments. There exist three types of cone photoreceptors, each being maximally sensitive to a specific wavelength of light depending on the structure of their 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. The distribution of photoreceptor cells across the surface of the retina has important consequences for vision. Cone photoreceptors are concentrated in a depression in the center of the retina known as the fovea centralis and decrease in number towards the periphery of the retina. Conversely, rod photoreceptors are present at high density throughout the most of the retina with a sharp decline in the fovea. Perception in high luminescence settings is dominated by cones despite the fact that they are greatly outnumbered by rods (approximately 4.5 million to 91 million). A minor mechanism of adaptation is the pupillary light reflex, adjusting the amount of light that reaches the retina very quickly by about a factor of ten. Since it constributes only a tiny fraction of the overall adaptation to light it is not further considered here. 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 cones in the eye are the major contributors to dark adaptation. Above a certain luminance level (about 0.03 cd/m2), the cone mechanism is involved in mediating vision; photopic vision. Below this level, the rod mechanism comes into play providing scotopic (night) vision. The range where two mechanisms are working together is called the mesopic range, as there is not an abrupt transition between the two mechanism. This adaptation forms the basis of the Duplicity Theory. Many animals such as cats possess high-resolution night vision, allowing them to discriminate objects with high frequencies in low illumination settings. The tapetum lucidum is a reflective structure that is responsible for this superior night vision as it mirrors light back through the retina exposing the photoreceptor cells to an increased amount of light. Most animals which possess a tapetum lucidum are nocturnal most likely because upon reflection of light back through the retina the initial images become blurred. Humans, like their primate relatives, do not possess a tapetum lucidum and therefore were predisposed to be a diurnal species.