Sixth Mississippi State Conference on Differential Equations and
Computational Simulations.
Electronic Journal of Differential Equations,
Conference 15 (2007), pp. 1-9 

Title: Multiphoton response of retinal rod photoreceptors

Authors: Vasilios Alexiades (Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA) 
         Harihar Khanal (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical Univ., Daytona Beach, USA)
 
Abstract: 
 Phototransduction is the process by which light is converted into an
 electrical response in retinal photoreceptors.
 Rod photoreceptors contain a stack of (about 1000) disc membranes
 packed with photopigment rhodopsin molecules, which absorb the photons.
 We present computational experiments which show the profound
 effect on the response of the distances (how many discs apart)
 photons happen to be absorbed at.
 This photon-distribution effect alone can account for much of the
 observed variability in response.

Published February 28, 2007.
Math Subject Classifications: 92C45, 35K60, 65M99.
Key Words: Phototransduction; signaling; diffusion;
    parabolic system; finite volume scheme; parallel computation.