Website Questions by Don OMalley

Neuroscience, Fourth Edition

Purves Augustine Fitzpatrick Hall LaMantia McNamara White

Chapter 11: Vision: The Eye

1. The iris
a. is responsible for the refraction of light onto the retina.
b. regulates the amount of light entering the eye.
c. applies tension to the lens.
d. contains the pigment epithelial cells that nourish photoreceptors.
e. covers the cornea, shielding it from harmful UV rays.
2. Our underwater vision is poor because
a. water disperses light, making it impossible to focus.
b. in water there is no longer a refractive index difference between the cornea and the surrounding media.
c. water seeps into the iris, causing temporary cloudiness.
d. the hydrostatic pressure of water changes the shape of the eyeball.
e. All of the above
3. For which of the following reasons is myopia in humans assumed to be more common now than it was in ancient
times?
a. The vigorous exercise associated with early human lifestyles better nourished the retina.
b. Early humans were not exposed to the environmental toxins present in modern life.
c. Chronic exposure to fire smoke had a protective effect on the vision of early humans.
d. Early humans did not engage in the kinds of activities (e.g., reading and writing from an early age, watching
television) characteristic of modern life.
e. Myopia was not actually less common, just less recognized.
4. The fovea
a. covers approximately 40 percent of the retina.
b. lies at the center of the optic disk.
c. lies at the center of the macula lutea.
d. is synonymous with fundus.
e. is the only part of the retina that contains xanthophyll.
5. Which of the following represents the most direct pathway for the transmission of visual information from the
eye to the brain?
a. Photoreceptor bipolar cell ganglion cell brain
b. Horizontal cell bipolar cell ganglion cell brain
c. Photoreceptor bipolar cell amacrine cell brain
d. Photoreceptor horizontal cell ganglion cell brain
e. Photoreceptor bipolar cell amacrine cell ganglion cell brain
6. Which of the following statements about bipolar cells is false?
a. Because bipolar cells do not have direct contacts with HCs, they are unaffected by HC activity.
b. Off-bipolar cells hyperpolarize in response to light.
c. On-bipolar cells depolarize in response to light.
d. Glutamate causes off-bipolars to depolarize.
e. Glutamate causes on-bipolars to hyperpolarize.
7. Age-related macular degeneration, or AMD,

a. is rising in incidence in the United States.

b. can be detected by means of the Amsler grid.
c. can result from gradual loss of the pigment epithelium (dry AMD).
d. can be treated by laser-induced phototoxicity (wet AMD).
e. All of the above
8. The two main functions of the retinal pigment epithelium are _______ and _______.
a. structural support to the curvature of the retina; phagocytosis of shed outer segments
b. structural support to the curvature of the retina; synthesis of rhodopsin
c. phagocytosis of shed outer segments; synthesis of rhodopsin
d. phagocytosis of shed outer segments; regeneration of the photoreceptor photopigments
e. synthesis of rhodopsin; regeneration of the photoreceptor photopigments
9. Which of the following is not a component of the phototransduction signaling cascade initiated by light falling on
a rod?
a. Absorption of a photon of light by 11-cis retinal
b. Activation of protein kinase A
c. Increased activity of PDE (phosphodiesterase)
d. Dissociation of the subunit of transducin from the and subunits
e. A conformational change in the rhodopsin protein
10. The primary or most proximate event that accounts for light-induced hyperpolarization of photoreceptors is
a. the gating of ion channels by released retinal monomers.
b. a sudden increase in the concentration of cAMP, leading to activation of potassium channels.
c. a rapid fall in the concentration of cGMP, leading to closure of Na +/Ca2+ channels.
d. a rapid rise in the concentration of cGMP, leading to closure of Na +/Ca2+ channels.
e. light-induced photoisomerization of membrane-bound calcium channels.
11. The death of retinal cells in retinitis pigmentosa is most likely
a. due to infection.
b. via apoptosis.
c. due to excessive light exposure.
d. due to environmental toxins.
e. All of the above
12. The main reason that rods are more sensitive to light than cones is that
a. The photopigment of rods is much more sensitive to light than the photopigment used in cones.
b. The eye contains 1000 times as many rods as cones.
c. The rod transduction mechanism and subsequent circuitry provides greater signal amplification.
d. The rod is sensitive to a much broader range of wavelengths.
e. All of the above
13. By which of the following mechanisms are rod signals conveyed in conditions of low light?
a. Rod bipolar cells synapse upon AII amacrine cells, which in turn synapse on ganglion cells.
b. Rod bipolar cells synapse upon a specialized set of ganglion cells that transmit the rod signals to other ganglion
cells.
c. Rod bipolar cells of both the on and off types send outputs selectively to on and off ganglion cells.
d. Rod photoreceptors send their outputs directly to on and off cone bipolar cells.
e. Rod photoreceptors send their signals mainly through horizontal cells to the rod bipolars.
14. Which of the following statements about the contributions of rods and cones to vision is true?
a. Because cones carry three different color channels, there are three times as many cones as rods.
b. Rods outnumber cones by 100 to 1, which explains the greater sensitivity of rods in low light.

c. Rods are evenly distributed across the entire retina.

d. The density of cones is 200-fold higher in the fovea than in the most eccentric retinal regions.
e. The density of rods is highest in the far periphery of the retina.
15. Which of the following statements about color vision processing is false?
a. Because there are several different color types of cones, they are sensitive to dimmer illumination levels than is
the population of rods.
b. Cones (in humans) come in three different colors: blue, green, and red (or short, medium, and long).
c. Different wavelengths of light can produce different patterns of activity in the cone population as a whole.
d. Information from specific color cones can be selectively relayed to specific regions of a retinal ganglion cells
receptive field.
e. All of the above
16. The retinex theory of color information processing
a. is based on the distribution of different color cones in the retina.
b. was proposed by the artist Piet Mondrian.
c. makes use of a series of ratiometric equations that integrate spectral features of the visual scene.
d. was confirmed by voltage-dye mapping experiments in monkey cortex.
e. successfully predicts how different forms of color-blindness will affect color perception.
17. Which of the following statements about center-surround receptive fields in the retina is false?
a. Cells that are inhibited by light in their center are excited by light in their surround.
b. Cells that are excited by light in their center are inhibited by light in their surround.
c. The surround portion of the receptive field is typically an annulus (or donut-shaped ring) that surrounds the
circular center.
d. the spatial extent to which a cell can be influenced by light never extends beyond the physical extent of its
dendritic field.
e. The best stimulus for an on-center cell is light in its center and darkness in its surround.
18. Which of the following statements would correctly describe an off-center ganglion cell sitting on or near an
edge (dark on one side, light on the other)?
a. The cell would fire most strongly if the edge ran through the exact center of the cell.
b. The cell would respond most strongly to this stimulus with its off-center sitting on the dark side of the border and
just barely touching the border
c. The cell would fire most strongly with its entire receptive field on the dark side of the border.
d. Illumination of the entire receptive field would provide a purely inhibitory signal to the cell.
e. This stimulus, if optimally aligned, would evoke the cells strongest possible firing response.
19. The illusion produced when black rectangles are separated by narrow white bars is best explained by which of
the following?
a. Light is scattered between adjacent photoreceptors.
b. We are unable to spatially resolve the intersections of the white bars.
c. The photic information is initially provided only by graded electrical responses.
d. Brightness percepts are most likely generated on a statistical basis as a means of contending with the inherent
ambiguity of luminance.
e. All of the above
20. The center-surround receptive field of the retinal ganglion cell is thought to arise in largest part due to
a. the effects of amacrine cells on ganglion cells.
b. lateral interactions between ganglion cells.
c. the effects of bipolar cells on horizontal cells.
d. the effects of horizontal cells on bipolar cells.
e. the effects of amacrine cells on bipolar cell terminals.