HUMAN EYE

EYE

Eyes are organs of vision that detect light. Different kinds of light-sensitive organs are found in a variety of organisms. The simplest eyes do nothing but detect whether the surroundings are light or dark, while more complex eyes can distinguish shapes and colors. The visual fields of some such complex eyes largely overlap, to allow better depth perception (binocular vision), as in humans; and others are placed so as to minimize the overlap, such as in rabbits and chameleons.

ANATOMY OF MAMMALIAN EYE

The structure of the mammalian eye can be divided into three main layers or tunics whose names reflect their basic functions: the fibrous tunic, the vascular tunic, and the nervous tunic
The fibrous tunic, also known as the tunica fibrosa oculi, is the outer layer of the eyeball consisting of the cornea and sclera. The sclera gives the eye most of its white color. It consists of dense connective tissue filled with the protein collagen to both protect the inner components of the eye and maintain its shape.

The vascular tunic, also known as the tunica vasculosa oculi, is the middle vascularized layer which includes the iris, ciliary body, and choroid.The choroid contains blood vessels that supply the retinal cells with necessary oxygen and remove the waste products of respiration. The choroid gives the inner eye a dark color, which prevents disruptive reflections within the eye.

The nervous tunic, also known as the tunica nervosa oculi, is the inner sensory which includes the retina. The retina contains the photosensitive rod and cone cells and associated neurons. To maximise vision and light absorption, the retina is a relatively smooth (but curved) layer. It does have two points at which it is different; the fovea and optic disc. The fovea is a dip in the retina directly opposite the lens, which is densely packed with cone cells. It is largely responsible for color vision in humans, and enables high acuity, such as is necessary in reading. The optic disc, sometimes referred to as the anatomical blind spot, is a point on the retina where the optic nerve pierces the retina to connect to the nerve cells on its inside. No photosensitive cells whatsoever exist at this point, it is thus "blind". Squids and Octupi don't have this blind spot, however.

ANTERIOR SEGMENT

The anterior segment is the front third of the eye that includes the structures in front of the vitreous humour: the cornea, iris, ciliary body, and lens. Within the anterior segment are two fluid-filled spaces: the anterior chamber and the posterior chamber. The anterior chamber is the space between the posterior surface of the cornea (i.e. the corneal endothelium) and the iris, whereas the posterior chamber is between the iris and the front face of the vitreous.

The cornea and lens help to converge light rays to focus onto the retina. The lens, behind the iris, is a convex, springy disk which focuses light, through the second humour, onto the retina. It is attached to the ciliary body via a ring of suspensory ligaments known as the Zonule of Zinn. To clearly see an object far away, the ciliary muscle is relaxed, which stretches the fibers connecting it with the lens, flattening the lens. When the ciliary muscle contracts, the tension of the fibers decrease (imagine that the distance between the tip of a triangle to its base, is less than the tip of the triangle to the other two tips.) which lets the lens bounce back a more convex and round shape. Humans gradually lose this flexibility with age, resulting in the inability to focus on nearby objects, which is known as presbyopia. There are other refraction errors arising from the shape of the cornea and lens, and from the length of the eyeball. These include myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism. The iris, between the lens and the first humour, is a pigmented ring of fibrovascular tissue and muscle fibres. Light must first pass though the centre of the iris, the pupil. The size of the pupil is actively adjusted by the circular and radial muscles to maintain a relatively constant level of light entering the eye. Too much light being let in could damage the retina; too little light makes sight difficult.

All of the individual components through which light travels within the eye before reaching the retina are transparent, minimising dimming of the light. Light enters the eye from an external medium such as air or water, passes through the cornea, and into the first of two humours, the aqueous humour. Most of the light refraction occurs at the cornea which has a fixed curvature. The first humour is a clear mass which connects the cornea with the lens of the eye, helps maintain the convex shape of the cornea (necessary to the convergence of light at the lens) and provides the corneal endothelium with nutrients.

POSTERIOR SEGMENT

The posterior segment is the back two-thirds of the eye that includes the anterior hyaloid membrane and all structures behind it: the vitreous humor, retina, choroid, and optic nerve.[18] On the other side of the lens is the second humour, the vitreous humour, which is bounded on all sides: by the lens, ciliary body, suspensory ligaments and by the retina. It lets light through without refraction, helps maintain the shape of the eye and suspends the delicate lens. In some animals, the retina contains a reflective layer (the tapetum lucidum) which increases the amount of light each photosensitive cell perceives, allowing the animal to see better under low light conditions.

CYTOLOGY

The structure of the mammalian eye owes itself completely to the task of focusing light onto the retina. This light causes chemical changes in the photosensitive cells of the retina, the products of which trigger nerve impulses which travel to the brain.

The retina contains two forms of photosensitive cells important to vision—rods and cones. Though structurally and metabolically similar, their function is quite different. Rod cells are highly sensitive to light allowing them to respond in dim light and dark conditions, however, they cannot detect color. These are the cells which allow humans and other animals to see by moonlight, or with very little available light (as in a dark room). This is why the darker conditions become, the less color objects seem to have. Cone cells, conversely, need high light intensities to respond and have high visual acuity. Different cone cells respond to different wavelengths of light, which allows an organism to see color.

The differences are useful; apart from enabling sight in both dim and light conditions, humans have given them further application. The fovea, directly behind the lens, consists of mostly densely-packed cone cells. This gives humans a highly detailed central vision, allowing reading, bird watching, or any other task which primarily requires looking at things. Its requirement for high intensity light does cause problems for astronomers, as they cannot see dim stars, or other objects, using central vision because the light from these is not enough to stimulate cone cells. Because cone cells are all that exist directly in the fovea, astronomers have to look at stars through the "corner of their eyes" (averted vision) where rods also exist, and where the light is sufficient to stimulate cells, allowing the individual to observe distant stars.

Rods and cones are both photosensitive, but respond differently to different frequencies of light. They both contain different pigmented photoreceptor proteins. Rod cells contain the protein rhodopsin and cone cells contain different proteins for each color-range. The process through which these proteins go is quite similar—upon being subjected to electromagnetic radiation of a particular wavelength and intensity, the protein breaks down into two constituent products. Rhodopsin, of rods, breaks down into opsin and retinal; iodopsin of cones breaks down into photopsin and retinal. The opsin in both opens ion channels on the cell membrane which leads to hyperpolarization, this hyperpolarization of the cell leads to a release of transmitter molecules at the synapse.

This is the reason why cones and rods enable organisms to see in dark and light conditions—each of the photoreceptor proteins requires a different light intensity to break down into the constituent products. Further, synaptic convergence means that several rod cells are connected to a single bipolar cell, which then connects to a single ganglion cell by which information is relayed to the visual cortex. This is in direct contrast to the situation with cones, where each cone cell is connected to a single bipolar cell. This results in the high visual acuity, or the high ability to distinguish between detail, of cone cells and not rods. If a ray of light were to reach just one rod cell this may not be enough to hyperpolarize the connected bipolar cell. But because several "converge" onto a bipolar cell, enough transmitter molecules reach the synapse of the bipolar cell to hyperpolarize it.

Furthermore, color is distinguishable due to the different iodopsins of cone cells; there three different kinds, in normal human vision, which is why we need three different primary colors to make a color space.

DISEASE'S,DISORDERS AND AGE RELATED CHANGES

There are many diseases, disorders, and age-related changes that may affect the eyes and surrounding structures.
As the eye ages certain changes occur that can be attributed solely to the aging process. Most of these anatomic and physiologic processes follow a gradual decline. With aging, the quality of vision worsens due to reasons independent of aging eye diseases. While there are many changes of significance in the nondiseased eye, the most functionally important changes seem to be a reduction in pupil size and the loss of accommodation or focusing capability (presbyopia). The area of the pupil governs the amount of light that can reach the retina. The extent to which the pupil dilates also decreases with age. Because of the smaller pupil size, older eyes receive much less light at the retina. In comparison to younger people, it is as though older persons wear medium-density sunglasses in bright light and extremely dark glasses in dim light. Therefore, for any detailed visually guided tasks on which performance varies with illumination, older persons require extra lighting. Certain ocular diseases can come from sexually transmitted diseases such as herpes and genital warts. If contact between eye and area of infection occurs, the STD will be transmitted to the eye.
With aging a prominent white ring develops in the periphery of the cornea- called arcus senilis. Aging causes laxity and downward shift of eyelid tissues and atrophy of the orbital fat. These changes contribute to the etiology of several eyelid disorders such as ectropion, entropion, dermatochalasis, and ptosis. The vitreous gel undergoes liquefaction (posterior vitreous detachment or PVD) and its opacities—visible as floaters—gradually increase in number.
Various eye care professionals, including ophthalmologists, optometrists, and opticians, are involved in the treatment and management of ocular and vision disorders. A Snellen chart is one type of eye chart used to measure visual acuity. At the conclusion of an eye examination, an eye doctor may provide the patient with an eyeglass prescription for corrective lenses

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA