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Boosting 2-photon vision with adaptive optics

The 2-photon effect in vision occurs when two photons of the same wavelength are absorbed by cone photopigment in the retina and create a visual sensation matching the appearance of light close to half their wavelength. This effect is especially salient for infrared light, where humans are mostly in...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Doyle, Hannah K., Herbeck, Sofie R., Boehm, Alexandra E., Vanston, John E., Ng, Ren, Tuten, William S., Roorda, Austin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10561787/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37801322
http://dx.doi.org/10.1167/jov.23.12.4
Descripción
Sumario:The 2-photon effect in vision occurs when two photons of the same wavelength are absorbed by cone photopigment in the retina and create a visual sensation matching the appearance of light close to half their wavelength. This effect is especially salient for infrared light, where humans are mostly insensitive to 1-photon isomerizations and thus any perception is dominated by 2-photon isomerizations. This phenomenon can be made more readily visible using short-pulsed lasers, which increase the likelihood of 2-photon excitation by making photon arrivals at the retina more concentrated in time. Adaptive optics provides another avenue for enhancing the 2-photon effect by focusing light more tightly at the retina, thereby increasing the spatial concentration of incident photons. This article makes three contributions. First, we demonstrate through color-matching experiments that an adaptive optics correction can provide a 25-fold increase in the luminance of the 2-photon effect—a boost equivalent to reducing pulse width by 96%. Second, we provide image-based evidence that the 2-photon effect occurs at the photoreceptor level. Third, we use our results to compute the specifications for a system that could utilize 2-photon vision and adaptive optics to image and stimulate the retina using a single infrared wavelength and reach luminance levels comparable to conventional displays.