Comment on Activation of Visual Pigments by Light and Heat (Science 332, 1307-312, 2011)

TL;DR

This paper critically reexamines Luo et al.'s proposed solution using the Hinshelwood distribution to model retinal pigment activation, finding that their approach does not fully resolve the discrepancy in dark noise modeling.

Contribution

It provides a critical reanalysis of Luo et al.'s methodology, questioning the effectiveness of their alternative distribution in explaining retinal dark noise.

Findings

Luo et al.'s approach is questionable upon reanalysis

The proposed solution does not fully resolve the activation energy discrepancy

Further research is needed to accurately model retinal pigment activation

Abstract

It is known that the Arrhenius equation, based on the Boltzmann distribution, can model only a part (e.g. half of the activation energy) for retinal discrete dark noise observed for vertebrate rod and cone pigments. Luo et al (Science, 332, 1307-312, 2011) presented a new approach to explain this discrepancy by showing that applying the Hinshelwood distribution instead the Boltzmann distribution in the Arrhenius equation solves the problem successfully. However, a careful reanalysis of the methodology and results shows that the approach of Luo et al is questionable and the results found do not solve the problem completely.