Abstract

A microretardometer–nephelometer was constructed to measure birefringence and forward-direction light scattering concurrently in single retinal rod outer segments (ROS). The relative contributions of light-induced birefringence and light-scattering changes to observed far-red transmission changes measured normal to the cell axis were evaluated in isolated, whole, flash-bleached ROS. No light-scattering transients were found corresponding to the previously reported rapid birefringence loss associated with the metarhodopsin i → metarhodopsin ii reaction even under conditions in which such a light-scattering change has been reported for outer-segment fragments.

© 1981 Optical Society of America

Dichroic microspectrophotometer: A computer-assisted, rapid, wavelength-scanning photometer for measuring linear dichroism in single cells*

Ferenc I. Hárosi and Edward F. MacNichol
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 64(7) 903-918 (1974)

Anomalous dispersion of rhodopsin in rod outer segments of the frog

W. S. Jagger and P. A. Liebman
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 66(1) 56-59 (1976)

Effects of photopic annulus luminance level on reaction time and on the latency of evoked cortical potential responses to target flashes

Alan J. Wilson and Alfred Lit
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 71(12) 1481-1486 (1981)

Use of the waveguide parameter V to determine the difference in the index of refraction between the rat rod outer segment and the interstitial matrix

Jay M. Enoch and Frank L. Tobey
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 68(8) 1130-1134 (1978)

Birefringence and dichroism

Victor Twersky
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 71(10) 1243-1249 (1981)