THE DIRECTLY RECORDED STANDING POTENTIAL OF THE HUMAN EYE

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Abstract
By means of a newly developed method including a suction contact lens and matched calomel half‐cell electrodes which were temperature stabilized, the standing potential (SP) of the human eye, considered to be generated mainly in the pigment epithelium, could be directly recorded under stable conditions. Upon a change in illumination from darkness to 16 Lux, an initial, rather fast, negative transient was followed by slower, damped oscillations with a frequency of about 2/hour. The maximum amplitude of an oscillation was of the order of 5mV. When the illumination was changed in the opposite direction, the polarity of the oscillations was reversed into a mirror image of the variations described above. Also, the oscillations now were considerably smaller in amplitude. With respect to phases and frequencies, the results correspond well to the changes found in EOG measurements. The new method seems to permit a study of the effects of drugs and other substances on the human SP, which is also likely to reflect the condition of the pigment epithelium.