Blind spot (vision)



A blind spot, scotoma, is an obscuration of the visual field. A particular blind spot known as the physiological blind spot, "blind point", or punctum caecum in medical literature, is the place in the visual field that corresponds to the lack of light-detecting photoreceptor cells on the optic disc of the retina where the optic nerve passes through the optic disc. Because there are no cells to detect light on the optic disc, the corresponding part of the field of vision is invisible. Via processes in the brain, the blind spot is interpolated based on surrounding detail and information from the other eye, so it is not normally perceived.

Although all vertebrates have this blind spot, cephalopod eyes, which are only superficially similar because they evolved independently, do not. In them, the optic nerve approaches the receptors from behind, so it does not create a break in the retina.

The first documented observation of the phenomenon was in the 1660s by Edme Mariotte in France. At the time it was generally thought that the point at which the optic nerve entered the eye should actually be the most sensitive portion of the retina; however, Mariotte's discovery disproved this theory.

The blind spot in humans is located about 12–15° temporally and 1.5° below the horizontal and is roughly 7.5° high and 5.5° wide.

Night blind spot
It is estimated that once fully adapted to darkness, the rods are 10,000 times more sensitive to light than the cones, making them the primary receptors for night vision. Since the cones are concentrated near the fovea, the rods are also responsible for much of the peripheral vision. The concentration of cones in the fovea can make a night blind spot in the center of the field of vision.