2017 Group Project 4

Eye Development

Introduction to the eye

We could give a description of the adult anatomy of the eye in this section - happy to take this as we've just covered this section in anatomy! - z3416557 Perfect! This is your section then! :-)

Development of the eye components

The eyes are derived from four sources:

• The neuroectoderm of the forebrain forms
  • Retina
  • Posterior layers of the iris
  • The optic nerve.
• The surface ectoderm of the head forms
  • The lens of the eye
  • The corneal epithelium.
• The mesoderm between the neuroectoderm and the surface ectoderm forms
  • The fibrous and vascular coats of the eye
• The neural crest cells forms
  • Choroid
  • Sclera
  • Corneal endothelium

INSERT PICTURE The eye starts to develop at 22 days. The optic grooves (sulci) appears in the neural folds at the cranial end of the embryo. When the neural fold fuse to form the forebrain, the optic grooves will form optic vesicles. The optic vesicles are continuous cavities from the cavity of the forebrain and project from the wall of the forebrain and into the mesenchyme. The optic vesicles will grow and the optic stalks will form to keep the connection between the optic vesicles and the forebrain. The optic vesicles will at some point come in contact with the surface ectoderm and at the same time, the surface ectoderm near the optic vesicles will thicken and form the lens placodes. The lens placodes will sink into the surface ectoderm and form lens pits. The edges of the lens pits will travel towards each other and fuse to form round lens vesicles, which will later lose connection with the surface ectoderm. The optic vesicles do also keep developing - they will form double-walled optic cups which are connected to the brain by the optic stalk. The optic cups will form the retina and the optic stalk will form the optic nerve. The optic cups will fold inwards around the lens while the lens vesicles have grown inwards so they have fully lost their connection with the surface ectoderm, which locates them in the cavities of the optic cups. The retinal fissures (linear grooves) will develop and cover the ventral surface of the optic cups and down to the optic stalk. The retinal fissures contain vascular mesenchyme and hyaloid blood vessels will develop here. The hyaloid artery supplies the structures in the eye with blood and the hyaloid vein will return the blood from these structures.

Retina

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Optic Nerve

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The axons of the ganglion cells of the neural retina will grow in the wall of the optic nerve. The cavity in the optic nerve will start disappearing, and instead, the axons of the ganglion cells will form the optic nerve.

Ciliary Body

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Iris

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Lens

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Aquous Chambers

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Cornea

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Choroid and Sclera

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Eyelids

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Lacrimal Glands

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Extraocular muscles

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<pubmed>26410132</pubmed> <pubmed>23071378</pubmed>

Common Abnormalities

We could talk briefly in this sections about the causes of short/long-sightedness and common causes of blindness at a developmental level - z3416557

Further Research

5117343 In the news, media, websites starting point: Macular Research: https://www.cera.org.au/research/macular-research/ > Bionic Eye - https://theconversation.com/artificial-vision-what-people-with-bionic-eyes-see-79758 Corneal Research: https://www.cera.org.au/research/corneal-research/ > Stem cells, corneal transplant

Recent papers

Mark Hill (talk) 10:15, 14 August 2017 (AEST) OK Group 4 below are some starting places.

<pubmed limit=5>Eye+Development</pubmed>

Here is a few papers talking about eye development

z5177670 - Eye Development and Retinogenesis (NCBI): NCBI

z5177670 - <pubmed>1100417</pubmed>

z5177670 - <pubmed>10627820</pubmed>

z5075309 - <pubmed>26956898</pubmed>

External links

PubMed Searches: Eye Development | Vision Development

BMC Dev Biol Search: Eye Development