Color electroretinography. A method for separation of dysfunctions of cones.

Electroretinograms to white and color stimuli were recorded in four normal subjects and nine subjects with different cone dysfunctions, including protanopia, cone dystrophy, cone dystrophy with supernormal b-waves at dark adaptation, cone dystrophy with missing b-waves during light adaptation and rod-cone dystrophy with blue cone hypersensitivity. Color stimuli were obtained with Kodak Wratten filters in blue, blue-green, green, yellow and red. Electroretinograms to all stimuli were recorded during dark and light adaptation with different stimulus intensities and to 30-Hz flicker stimulation. In protanopia, responses to red during light adaptation and flicker stimulation were reduced. All cone dystrophies showed reduced amplitudes and prolonged implicit times to red when dark adapted. The light-adapted responses were equally reduced to all color stimuli in cone dystrophy and cone dystrophy with supernormal b-waves. Contrary to other cone dystrophies, in cone dystrophy with missing b-waves, responses to red were severely reduced and responses to green were preserved, indicating a predominantly red cone dysfunction. Blue cone hypersensitivity was clearly distinct from other dystrophies in having large response to blue and blue-green and much smaller responses to all other colors in all stimulus conditions. The electroretinogram with color stimuli allowed separation of different cone dysfunctions and identification of new retinal dysfunction syndromes.