Cat colour vision: one cone process or several?

1. Peripheral mechanisms that might contribute to colour vision in the cat have been investigated by recording from single units in the lateral geniculate and optic tract. Evidence is presented that the input to these cells comes from a single class of cones with a single spectral sensitivity.2. In cats with pupils dilated a background level of 10-30 cd/m(2) was sufficient to saturate the rod system for all units. When the rods were saturated, the spectral sensitivity of all units peaked at 556 nm; this was true both for centre and periphery of the receptive field. The spectral sensitivity curve was slightly narrower than the Dartnall nomogram. It could not be shifted by chromatic adaptation with red, green, blue or yellow backgrounds.3. In the mesopic range (0.1-10 cd/m(2)), the threshold could be predicted in terms of two mechanisms, a cone mechanism with spectral sensitivity peaking at 556 nm, and a rod mechanism with spectral sensitivity at 500 nm. The mechanisms were separated and their increment threshold curves measured by testing with one colour against a background of another colour. All units had input from both rods and cones. The changeover from rods to cones occurred at the same level of adaptation in both centre and periphery of the receptive field. Threshold for the cones was between 0.04 and 0.25 cd/m(2) with the pupil dilated, for a spot covering the centre of the receptive field.4. None of the results was found to vary between lateral geniculate and optic tract, with layer in the lateral geniculate, or with distance from area centralis in the visual field.5. The lack of evidence for more than one cone type suggests that colour discrimination in the cat may be a phenomenon of mesopic vision, based on differences in spectral sensitivity of the rods and a single class of cones.