The Open Medical Informatics Journal

2009, 3 : 9-12
Published online 2009 April 02. DOI: 10.2174/1874431100903010009
Publisher ID: TOMINFOJ-3-9

RESEARCH ARTICLE
 Do Hummingbirds See in Ultraviolet?

M Curé, *,1 and A.G Palacios2
1 Departamento de Física y Astronomía, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile
2 Centro de Neurociencia de Valparaíso, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile

* Address correspondence to this author at the Departamento de Física y Astronomía, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile. Gran Bretaña 1111, Playa Ancha, Valparaíso, Chile; E-mail: michel.cure@uv.cl

ABSTRACT

We present a numerical model to fit the electroretinogram (ERG), a gross evoked eye visual potential, that originate in the retina through photons absorption by photoreceptors and then involve the contribution form others retinal neurons. We use the ERG measured in a hummingbird, to evaluate the most likely retinal mechanism - cones visual pigments and oil-droplets - that participate in their high dimensional tetra or pentachromatic color hyperspace. The model - a nonlinear fit - appears to be a very useful tool to predict the underlying contribution visual mechanism for a variety of retinal preparation.

Keywords:

Color vision, electroretinogram, non lineal model.