The Reflectance of Single Cones in the Living

PURPOSE. Individual cones were imaged in the living human eye with the Rochester adaptive optics ophthalmoscope. In all eyes, there were large differences in the reflectance of differ-ent cones, even when all the photopigment was bleached. To help understand what produces this spatial variation, the in-vestigators explored whether it is a static or a dynamic prop-erty of the cone mosaic. METHODS. Fully bleached cone images were acquired in three eyes with an adaptive optics system. Images were collected over a 10-minute period approximately every hour for 24 hours. The temporal variation in cone directionality was mea-sured in one eye. Finally, the experimental data on the tempo-ral variation of absorption were compared with findings in various models of reflectance. RESULTS. Cone reflectance changes over time appear to b