Rethinking the Process of Vision

 A diagram summarizing my explanation for light interaction with retinal receptors. One sees to the left  the interaction of light as the wave of classical physics adjacent to the side wall of an individual receptor (either cone or rod). It is the dimensions of this space between individual receptors that geometrically defines the wavelength of the interaction. Absorbed light energy is then transduced, in the direction orthognal to the direction of light incidence,  through the bilipid membrane  that forms the thylakoid disk structure (there are many of these disks “coin stacked” forming the length of the receptor outer segment). This represents the point where the electromagnetic energy of light (”speed of light”) is converted to phononic (i.e., mass associated , “speed of sound”) energy. I believe that this latter transport mechanism actually involves “coherent phonons” or  solitons with this quantized vibration being lossless. The intercalation of cholesterol into the bilipid  biological membrane structure implies the existence of solitonic transport. This laterally transduced energy then reaches the rhodopsin complexes contained within the thylakoid disk structure resulting in the isomeric transition of the retinal molecule and generating the electronic signal used in the image-forming process of vision. This complex forms the “quantized electron” space of the light interaction process. The role of the variably dimensioned,  retinal-enclosing, opsin protein is as a “spacing element” to fit the signal  generating retinal into the wavelength-determining ,variable dimensions of the retinal surface (cone-to-cone, cone-to-rod, etc.). In short, “the retinal molecule  is constant with the dimensions of the opsin molecule being variable”.  The reason for the lengthy “stack” of individual thylakoid disks that form the outer segment is to encode a directional signal for use in the image forming process  probably via a “giant electrical dipole” mechanism as I propose.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 10th, 2008 at 1:14 pm and is filed under Running Commentary . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.