FIGURE 12.

Role of melanopsin in corneal sensitivity. Measurement of corneal mechanical sensitivity performed by means of von Frey test. Greater values mean lower corneal sensitivity. Test was performed in naïve mice (clear bars, the same results as the ones presented in the Figure 2) and in mice intraperitoneally (ip, 30 mg/kg) injected with melanopsin antagonist (opn4 antago) 15 min before the start of the test. For more detail, see “Materials and Methods” section. Statistical significance for the recovery 3d group: blue naïve vs. yellow naïve – q = 0.0010, p = 0.0010, blue naïve vs. blue antago opn4 – q = 0.0008, p = 0.0005, blue naïve vs. yellow antago opn4 – q = 0.0004, p = 0.0001. Measurements were made at three time points: before hν, before the beginning of illumination; after hν, directly after 3 h of illumination; recovery 3d, after 3 days of recovery in standard illumination conditions of animal unit. Blue and yellow bars correspond to blue and yellow exposures, respectively. All the data are presented as mean ± SEM. Differences were considered significant when p < 0.05 (^∧), p < 0.01 (^∧∧), p < 0.001 (^∧∧∧) or p < 0.0001 (^∧∧∧∧).