Figure 5.

A, B, Recovery of ERG a-wave amplitude (A _max; A) and ERG a-wave flash sensitivity (S _f; B) after bleaching >90% of rod visual pigment in 4-month-old (n = 5 mice) and 2.5-year-old (n = 4 mice) animals. The parameters were normalized to their dark-adapted values (A _max ^DA and S _f ^DA, respectively). Bleaching was achieved by 1 min illumination with bright 520 nm LED light at time 0 (see Materials and Methods). Data in A were corrected for the residual a-wave of ∼25–50 μV, presumably generated by M-cones, that was observed immediately after the bleach. Final levels of response recovery are 54 and 56% for adult and aged mice, respectively, and half-times of the recovery are ∼30 min in both cases (including an initial ∼10 min delay). All values are means ± SEM.