text: Light enters the eye, passes through the optical media, then the inner neural layers of the retina before finally reaching the photoreceptor cells in the outer layer of the retina. The light may be absorbed by a chromophore bound to an opsin, which photoisomerizes the chromophore, initiating both the visual cycle, which "resets" the chromophore, and the phototransduction cascade, which transmits the visual signal to the brain. The cascade begins with graded polarisation (an analog signal) of the excited photoreceptor cell, as its membrane potential increases from a resting potential of -70 mV, proportional to the light intensity. At rest, the photoreceptor cells are continually releasing glutamate at the synaptic terminal to maintain the potential. The transmitter release rate is lowered (hyperpolarization) as light intensity increases. Each synaptic terminal makes up to 500 contacts with horizontal cells and bipolar cells. These intermediate cells (along with amacrine cells) perform comparisons of photoreceptor signals within a receptive field, but their precise functionalities are not well understood. The signal remains as a graded polarization in all cells until it reaches the RGCs, where it is converted to an action potential and transmitted to the brain.