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The Sense of Sight / All About the Eyes
The inner tunic of the globe The epithelia
The retina is the part of the eye that receives the light and converts it into chemical energy. The chemical energy activates nerves that conduct the messages out of the eye into the higher regions of the brain. The retina is a complex nervous structure, being, in essence, an outgrowth of the forebrain. Ten layers of cells in the retina can be seen microscopically. In general, there are four main layers: (1) Next to the choroid is the pigment epithelium, already mentioned. (2) Beneath the epithelium is the layer of rods and cones, the light-sensitive cells. The changes induced in the rods and cones by light are transmitted to (3) a layer of neurons (nerve cells) called the bipolar cells, which are analogous to the sensory neurons that carry messages from the touch and heat receptors of the skin and transmit them to the cells of the spinal cord or the medulla (the part of the brain that is a continuation of the spinal cord). These bipolar cells connect with (4) the innermost layer of neurons, the ganglion cells; and the transmitted messages are carried out of the eye along their projections, or axons, which constitute the optic nerve fibres. Thus, the optic nerve is really a central tract, rather than a nerve, connecting two regions of the nervous system, namely, the layer of bipolar cells, and the cells of the lateral geniculate body, the latter being a visual relay station in the diencephalon (the rear portion of the forebrain). The arrangement of the retinal cells in an orderly manner gives rise to the outer nuclear layer, containing the nuclei of the rods and cones; the inner nuclear layer, containing the nuclei and perikarya (main cell bodies outside the nucleus) of the bipolar cells, and the ganglion cell layer, containing the corresponding structures of the ganglion cells. The plexiform layers are regions in which the neurons make their interconnections. Thus, the outer plexiform layer contains the rod and cone projections terminating as the rod spherule and cone pedicle; these make connections with the dendritic processes of the bipolar cells, so that changes produced by light in the rods and cones are transmitted by way of these connections to the bipolar cells. (The dendritic process of a nerve cell is the projection that receives nerve impulses to the cell; the axon is the projection that carries impulses from the cell.) In the inner plexiform layer are the axons of the bipolar cells and the dendritic processes of the ganglion and amacrine cells (see below). The association is such as to allow messages in the bipolar cells to be transmitted to the ganglion cells, the messages then passing out along the axons of the ganglion cells as optic nerve messages. The photosensitive cells are, in the human and in most vertebrate retinas, of two kinds, called rods and cones, the rods being usually much thinner than the cones but both being built up on the same plan. The light-sensitive pigment is contained in the outer segment, which rests on the pigment epithelium. Through the other end, called the synaptic body, effects of light are transmitted to the bipolar and horizontal cells. When examined in the electron microscope, the outer segments of the rods and cones are seen to be composed of stacks of disks, apparently made by the infolding of the limiting membrane surrounding the outer segment; the visual pigment, located on the surfaces of these disks, is thus spread over a very wide area, and this contributes to the efficiency with which light is absorbed by the visual cell. The arrangement of the retina makes it necessary for light to pass through the layers not sensitive to light first before it reaches the light-sensitive rods and cones. The optical disadvantages of this arrangement are largely overcome by the development of the fovea centralis, a localized region of the retina, close to the optic axis of the eye, where the inner layers of the retina are absent. The result is a depression, the foveal pit, where light has an almost unrestricted passage to the light-sensitive cells. It is essentially this region of the retina that is employed for accurate vision, the eyes being directed toward the objects of regard so that their images fall in this restricted region. If the object of interest is large, so as to subtend a large angle, then the eye must move rapidly from region to region so as to bring their images successively onto the fovea; this is typically seen during reading. In the central region of the fovea there are cones exclusively; toward its edges, rods also occur, and as successive zones are reached the proportion of rods increases while the absolute density of packing of the receptors tends to decrease. Thus, the central fovea is characterized by an exclusive population of very densely packed cones; here, also, the cones are very thin and in form very similar to rods. The region surrounding the fovea is called the parafovea; it stretches about 1,250 microns from the centre of the fovea, and it is here that the highest density of rods occurs. Surrounding the parafovea, in turn, is the perifovea, its outermost edge being 2,750 microns from the centre of the fovea; here the density of cones is still further diminished, the number being only 12 per hundred microns compared with 50 per hundred microns in the most central region of the fovea. In the whole human retina there are said to be about 7,000,000 cones and from 75,000,000 to 150,000,000 rods. The fovea is sometimes referred to as the macula lutea (“yellow spot”); actually this term defines a rather vague area, characterized by the presence of a yellow pigment in the nervous layers, stretching over the whole central retina; i.e., the fovea, parafovea, and perifovea. The blind spot in the retina corresponds to the optic papilla, the region on the nasal side of the retina through which the optic nerve fibres pass out of the eye. Although the rods and cones may be said to form a mosaic, the retina is not organized in a simple mosaic fashion in the sense that each rod or cone is connected to a single bipolar cell that itself is connected to a single ganglion cell. There are only about 1,000,000 optic nerve fibres, while there are at least 150,000,000 receptors, so that there must be considerable convergence of receptors on the optic pathway. This means that there will be considerable mixing of messages. Furthermore, the retina contains additional nerve cells besides the bipolar and ganglion cells; these, the horizontal and amacrine cells, operate in the horizontal direction, allowing one area of the retina to influence the activity of another. In this way, for example, the messages from one part of the retina may be suppressed by a visual stimulus falling on another, an important element in the total of messages sent to the higher regions of the brain. Finally, it has been argued that some messages may be running the opposite way; they are called centrifugal and would allow one layer of the retina to affect another, or higher regions of the brain to control the responses of the retinal neurons. In primates the existence of these centrifugal fibres has been finally disproved, but in such lower vertebrates as the pigeon, their existence is quite certain. The pathway of the retinal messages through the brain is described later in this article; it is sufficient to state here that most of the optic nerve fibres in primates carry their messages to the lateral geniculate body, a relay station specifically concerned with vision. Some of the fibres separate from the main stream and run to a midbrain centre called the pretectal nucleus, which is a relay centre for pupillary responses to light. Take this preliminary Locate a health care practitioner to treat your condition.
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