Artificial cone responses: A computer-driven hardware model

• Published in: Vision research (Oxford) Vol. 20; no. 5; pp. 453 - 457
• Main Authors: Vallerga, S., Covacci, R., Pottala, E.W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 1980
• Subjects: Action Potentials; Ambystoma - physiology; Animals; Membrane Potentials; Models, Neurological; Photoreceptor Cells - physiology
• ISSN: 0042-6989; 1878-5646
• DOI: 10.1016/0042-6989(80)90036-X

A hardware model of a cone cell has been designed and fabricated according to the Baylor, Hodgkin and Lamb theoretical model ( J. Physiol. 242, 685–727, 759–791). The cone model is interfaced to a minicomputer which organizes the simulation of light stimuli and analyzes the responses. The fit of the simulated electrical responses with those recorded intracellularly from turtle cones is very good for 10 msec flashes and 670 msec steps of light, whose intensity ranged over 2.5 log units with the value of the unattenuated light of 1.5 × 10 17 photons sec −1 cm −2. The model parameters can be adjusted to give the closest reproduction of the actual photoresponses for different animals; in particular we obtained a good fit for the cone responses of the tiger salamander retina.