Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 25 November 1966:
Vol. 154. no. 3752, pp. 1051 - 1053
DOI: 10.1126/science.154.3752.1051
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Light-Stimulated Electrical Responses from Skin

Heywood Eric Recker 1 and Richard A. Cone 2

1 Department of Biology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520
2 Biological Laboratories, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

When skin is exposed to an intense flash of light, an early electrical response can be detected from its surface. The signals that occur during the first milliseconds after the flash are similar to electrical signals recently observed in the eye from the cell layers containing melanin. Possibly the melanin in skin augments, but does not directly generate, this early electrical response. In addition, a late response, which arises hundreds of milliseconds after the flash, also occurs in skin. Unlike the early response, the late response is sensitive only to violet and shorter wavelengths of light and hence is probably mediated by a pigment other than melanin.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Nonvisual Photic Responsiveness in Newly Hatched Pigeons (Columba livia).
M. S. Harth and M. B. Heaton (1973)
Science 180, 753-755
   Abstract »    PDF »
Optics and Visual Physiology.
R. E. Carr (1970)
Arch Ophthalmol 84, 238-251
   PDF »
Optics and Visual Physiology.
R. E. Carr (1969)
Arch Ophthalmol 82, 269-288
   PDF »
Optics and Visual Physiology.
R. E. Carr (1968)
Arch Ophthalmol 80, 280-299
   PDF »
Physiological Chemistry of the Eye.
S. L. Bonting (1967)
Arch Ophthalmol 78, 803-819
   PDF »
Molecular and Thermal Origins of Fast Photoelectric Effects in the Squid Retina.
W. A. Hagins and R. E. McGaughy (1967)
Science 157, 813-816
   Abstract »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)