Kylie Haverson

Period 2
March 3, 2016

Study Guide
1. The optic disk and the optic nerve are specific anatomical parts of the eye that
are responsible for the blind spot. The vitreous chamber is the viewing chamber located
at the back of the eye.The retina is the retinal surface at the back of the eye where
photoreceptors are located. These specific photoreceptors are called rods and cones.
The optic nerve is the neuron or master phone wire that connects from the back of the
eye to the brain. The purpose of the optic nerve is to send and carry messages
absorbed by those special photoreceptors on the retina to the brain. The opening or
circular hole in the back of your retina is called the optic disk. The optic disk is where the
optic nerve plugs into the retina. It is the exit point for the optic nerve and it contains no
photoreceptors. Where the optic nerve plugs into the retina is also called the blind spot.
When the light refracts off your lens and connects into that focal point. If that focal point
lands on the blind spot in the back of the retina, then the image will seem to magically
disappear. It is important to look over your shoulder before changing lanes while driving
is because car mirrors have limited light refraction. If no light reflects off an object then
the image will disappear. From light sometimes not reflecting off of objects, you should
always look over your shoulder when you are driving a car.
2. Floaties is also called Muscae Volitantes. The vitreous chamber is a fluid, filled
chamber which is also considered the posterior eye chamber. Inside the vitreous
chamber, there is a fluid which fills it. This fluid inside the chamber maintains shape of
the vitreous chamber. The vitreous humor is huge and acts as an internal magnifier. The
Canal of Schlemm are the drainage pipes located on either side of the anterior chamber.
During mitosis, when old cells are replaced by new ones and during Muscae Volitantes,
old cells exit the vitreous chamber through the Canal of Schlemm. The old retinal cells
pass through our line of sight. A magnified shadow of retinal debris is projected on the
retina. Following this, a message is sent down the optic nerve to the brain. The brain
then constructs a picture of the magnified debris making us see floaties.
3. An astigmatism is characterized by blurring vision. With people that have
emmetropic eyes there focal point perfectly converge and lands on the central fovea.
The central fovea is the specific part on the retina where there is the highest
concentration of photoreceptors and the bullseye. If the focal point lands on the central
fovea perfectly, you receive perfectly clear vision. However people with astigmatisms,
either there cornea or lens is irregular in shape or both are. From this, light refraction is
changed and the focal point misses the central fovea, resulting in blurry vision. You can
fix this by wearing cylindrically round lenses or contacts.
4. When you walk from a brightly light room to a dark room, you may experience
temporarily becoming blind. This is because of your photoreceptors, specifically rods.
Inside your photoreceptors, there are pigments. Pigments reflect light to help us see
color. The pigments job is to absorb light and when light is absorbed the pigment breaks

apart, which jump starts a message down the optic nerve. Rhodopsin is the pigment
found in rods. When light breaks apart rhodopsin it breaks into two pieces, Retinene and
Opsin. Daylight zaps all of the Rhodopsin in the rods. During the day all Rhodopsin is
broken down which is called the Bleaching Reaction. You temporarily become blind
because of the lack of pigment in the rods. All pigment has been zapped, broken down
and bleached out by the bright light. The time that is required to rebuild Rhodopsin is
called Dark Adaptation. From dark adaptation you experience temporary blindness.
5. The fovea centralis is the central focus point. It is the specific spot on the retina
which has the highest concentration of cones than rods. Cones absorb bright light and
are used in the daytime while rods are more sensitive to light and absorb dim light.
Around the periphery of the retina, a high concentration of rods are found. To achieve
clear vision and resolution the focal point has to land on the central fovea and that is why
images that land on the fovea centralis are clearer than images landing on the periphery
of the retina.
6. Humans have Trichromatic color vision. We have three types of cones, red,
green and blue. The overlapping of light frequencies produce our panoramic picture of
the rainbow. After images are produced continuously, are fixed instantly and we are
unaware of them. The afterimage of the American Flag works is because we see how
our brain sees. We purposely fatigue our cones and bleach the pigments inside our
cones. To produce an afterimage the brain defaults to another set of cones which are
red, white and blue. Green defaults to red and yellow defaults to blue, because the
wavelengths are so similar in frequency; an afterimage smoothly transitions into these
light wave frequencies allowing us to see an afterimage of the American Flag.

Clinical:
From the diagnosis and her glaucoma test being negative, I would conclude that this
women has presbyopia. She is farsighted and nearsighted. There is nothing to do with her
glasses, it's because of her eyes. When this women first got glasses she had myopia which
means that she is nearsighted, and has never needed glasses for close vision. However she
now needs glasses for distance vision. Now that she is older, her lens have become less
flexible. She was born with hyperopia but now presbyopia has set in. She will need glasses,
contacts or surgery to correct both problems. Bifocal glasses and contacts have a dulal
prescription, there is a concave lens in the top for clear distance vision and a convex lens at the
bottom for reading. These glasses will refract the light and accommodate it to get the focal point
on the central fovea to result in clear vision.