Dark light, rod saturation, and the absolute and incremental sensitivity of mouse cone vision.

Visual thresholds of mice for the detection of small, brief targets were measured with a novel behavioral methodology in the dark and in the presence of adapting lights spanning ∼8 log(10) units of intensity. To help dissect the contributions of rod and cone pathways, both wild-type mice and mice lacking rod (Gnat1(-/-)) or cone (Gnat2(cpfl3)) function were studied. Overall, the visual sensitivity of mice was found to be remarkably similar to that of the human peripheral retina.

The sensitivity and spectral identity of the cones driving the b-wave of the rat electroretinogram.

In the retina of rat, cones make up approximately 0.85% of the photoreceptor population: 93% of these cones contain a midwave-sensitive pigment, the rest expresses a short-wave-sensitive pigment (Szel & Rohlich, 1992). We used normal adult Long Evans rats to determine the spectral sensitivity of the cone-driven electroretinogram (ERG) b-wave and its absolute sensitivity at lambda(max) of the cone pigments.