Electrical Activity in the Vertebrate Retina*

Abstract

Descriptions are made of recent developments in research on the S potential and the ERG, two major responses in the vertebrate retina which undoubtedly represent important processes that are intermediate between the initial photochemical process and nervous activity as encoded information to the brain. Both of these responses, together with the nervous activity, have played a superb role as tools to the understanding of many psychophysical phenomena in terms of what is actually taking place in the retina. In this paper, however, emphasis is placed on the effort of investigators during the last decade toward the attainment of more basic knowledge concerning these tools themselves. The progress may not have been completely satisfactory, but the question of how the individual cellular units contribute to these responses will doubtless continue to be of interest to investigators.