visual system

- includes the eyes, the accessory structures, and sensory neurons.

We obtain much of our information about the world through the visual system. For example, education is largely
based on visual input and depends on our ability to read words and numbers.
- Visual input includes information about light and dark, movement and color.

Accessory Structures of the Eye

- protect, lubricate, and move the eye.
- iinclude the eyebrows, eyelids, conjunctiva, lacrimal apparatus, and extrinsic eye muscles)

Eyebrows
- protect the eyes by preventing perspiration from running down the forehead and into the eyes, causing irritation.
They also help shade the eyes from direct sunlight.

Eyelids
- protect the eyes from foreign objects.
-If an object suddenly approaches the eye, the eyelids protect the eye by closing and then opening quite rapidly (blink
reflex). Blinking, which normally occurs about 20 times per minute, also helps keep the eyes lubricated by spreading
tears over the surface.

Conjunctiva
- is a thin, transparent mucous membrane covering the inner surface of the eyelids and the anterior surface of the
eye.
- The secretions of the conjunctiva help lubricate the surface of the eye.
- Conjunctivitis is an inflammation of the conjunctiva

Lacrimal Apparatus
-consists of a lacrimal gland situated in the superior lateral corner of the orbit and a nasolacrimal duct and associated
structures in the inferior medial corner of the orbit).
- The lacrimal gland produces tears, which pass over the anterior surface of the eye. Most of the fluid produced by
the lacrimal glands evaporates from the surface of the eye, but excess tears are collected in the medial angle of the
eyes by small ducts called lacrimal canaliculi (little canals).
- These canaliculi open into a lacrimal sac, an enlargement of the nasolacrimal duct, which opens into the nasal
cavity. Tears lubricate and cleanse the eye. They also contain an enzyme that helps combat eye infections.

extrinsic eye muscles.

-Movement of each eyeball is accomplished by six skeletal muscles called the extrinsic eye muscles.
-Four of these muscles run more or less straight from their origins in the posterior portion of the orbit to their insertion
sites on the eye, to attach to the four quadrants of the eyeball. They are the superior, inferior, medial, and lateral
rectus muscles.
-Two muscles, the superior and inferior oblique muscles, are located at an angle to the long axis of the eyeball.

Anatomy of the Eye

-The eyeball is a hollow, fluid-filled sphere.
-The wall of the eye is composed of three tissue layers, or tunics.
-The outer, fibrous tunic consists of the sclera and cornea.
-The middle, vascular tunic consists of the choroid, ciliary body, and iris.
The inner nervous tunic consists of the retina.

Fibrous Tunic
The sclera -is the firm, white, outer connective tissue layer of the posterior five-sixths of the fibrous tunic.
- helps maintain the shape of the eye, protects the internal structures, and provides attachment sites for the extrinsic
eye muscles.

The cornea -is the transparent anterior sixth of the eye, which permits light to enter.
-As part of the focusing system of the fibrous tunic, the cornea also bends, or refracts, the entering light.

Vascular Tunic
The middle tunic of the eye is called the vascular tunic it contains most of the blood vessels of the eye.
-The posterior portion of the vascular tunic, associated with the sclera, is the choroid. This very thin structure
consists of a vascular network and many melanin-containing pigment cells, causing it to appear black.
The black color absorbs light, so that it is not reflected inside the eye.
-Anteriorly, the vascular tunic consists of the ciliary body and the iris.

The ciliary body is continuous with the anterior margin of the choroid. The ciliary body contains smooth muscles
called ciliary muscles, which attach to the perimeter of the lens by suspensory ligaments.
-The lens is a flex-ible, biconvex, transparent disc.

The iris is the colored part of the eye. It is attached to the anterior margin of the ciliary body, anterior to the lens.
-is a contractile structure consisting mainly of smooth muscle surrounding an opening called the pupil.
- it regulates the diameter of the pupil, which controls the amount of light entering the eye.
-Parasympathetic stimulation causes the circular smooth muscles of the iris to contract, constricting the pupil.
-sympathetic stimulation causes radial smooth muscles of the iris to contract, dilating the pupil.
-As light intensity increases, the pupil constricts; as light intensity decreases, the pupil dilates.

Nervous Tunic
- is the innermost tunic and consists of the retina.

- The retina covers the posterior five-sixths of the eye

composed of two layers: an outer pigmented retina and an inner sensory retina.

1. The pigmented retina, with the choroid, keeps light from reflecting back into the eye.

2. The sensory retina contains photoreceptor cells, called rods and cones, which respond to light.
-Rods are very sensitive to light and can function in dim light, but they do not provide color vision.
-Cones require much more light, and they do provide color vision.
There are three types of cones, each sensitive to a different color: blue, green, or red.

-The outer segments of rod and cone cells are modified by numerous foldings of the cell membrane to form discs.
-Rod cells contain a photosensitive pigment called rhodopsin (purple pigment).

Rhodopsin- consists of a protein opsin loosely bound to a yellow pigment called retinal.
-A person with a vitamin A deficiency may have a condition called night blindness, characterized by difficulty seeing
in dim light. Night blindness can also result from retinal detachment, which is the separation of the sensory retina
from the pigmented retina.

-The photosensitive pigments in cone cells are slightly different from those in rod cells. The pigments in cone cells
are sensitive to colors. Three major types of color-sensitive opsin exist; they are sensitive to blue, red, or green. The
many colors that we can see result from the stimulation of combinations of these three types of cones.

-The bipolar and horizontal cells synapse with ganglion cells, whose axons converge at the posterior of the eye to
form the optic nerve.
-When the posterior region of the retina is examined with an ophthalmoscope, two major features can be observed:
the macula and the optic disc.

Macula
-a small spot near the center of the posterior retina.In the center of the macula is a small pit, the fovea centralis.

The fovea centralis -is the part of the retina where light is most focused when the eye is looking directly at an object.
-contains only cone cells, and the cells are more tightly packed there than anywhere else in the retina.
-is the region with the greatest ability to discriminate fine images, which explains why objects are best seen straight
ahead

optic disc
- is a white spot just medial to the macula, through which a number of blood vessels enter the eye and spread over
the surface of the retina.
-This is also the spot at which axons from the retina meet, pass through the two outer tunics, and exit the eye as the
optic nerve.
-contains no photoreceptor cells and does not respond to light; it is therefore called “the blind spot of the eye”. A small
image projected onto the blind spot cannot be seen.

Chambers of the Eye

-The interior of the eye is divided into the anterior chamber, the posterior chamber, and the vitreous chamber.
- The anterior and posterior chambers are located between the cornea and the lens. The iris separates the anterior
and the posterior chambers, which are continuous with each other through the pupil. The much larger vitreous
chamber is posterior to the lens.

1.The anterior and posterior chambers are filled with aqueous humor (watery fluid), which helps maintain pressure
within the eye, refracts light, and provides nutrients to the inner surface of the eye.

Aqueous humor is produced by the ciliary body as a blood filtrate and is returned to the circulation through a venous
ring that surrounds the cornea.
-The presence of aqueous humor keeps the eye inflated, much like the air in a basketball. If flow of the aqueous
humor from the eye through the venous ring is blocked, the pressure in the eye increases, resulting in a condition
called glaucoma can eventually lead to blindness because the fluid compresses the retina.

2.The vitreous chamber of the eye is filled with a transparent, jellylike substance called vitreous humor.

The vitreous humor helps maintain pressure within the eye and holds the lens and the retina in place. It also refracts
light. Unlike the aqueous humor, the vitreous humor does not circulate.

Focusing Images on the Retina

The cornea is a convex structure, and as light rays pass from the air through the cornea, they converge.
-Additional convergence occurs as light passes through the aqueous humor, lens, and vitreous humor.
-The greatest contrast in media density is between the air and the cornea. The greatest amount of convergence
occurs at that point.
-Fine adjustments in focus are accomplished by changing the shape of the lens.
-When the ciliary muscles are relaxed, the suspensory ligaments of the ciliary body maintain elastic pressure on the
perimeter of the lens. keeping it relatively flat and allowing for distant vision.
- When an object is brought closer than 20 feet (about 6½ m) from the eye, the ciliary muscles contract as a result of
parasympathetic stimulation, pulling the ciliary body toward the lens. This reduces the tension on the suspensory
ligaments of the lens and allows the lens to assume a more spherical form
. -The spherical lens then has a more convex surface, causing greater refraction of light. This process is called
accommodation- it enables the eye to focus on images closer than 20 feet from the eye.

Neuronal Pathways for Vision

-shows the neuronal pathways that transmit signals generated by light from the time light enters the eye until it
reaches the area of the brain where vision is perceived.

-Some axons do not terminate in the thalamus but separate from the optic tracts to terminate in the superior colliculi,
the center for visual reflexes.
- Depth perception (three-dimensional, or binocular, vision) requires both eyes and occurs where the two visual fields
overlap. Each eye sees a slightly different (monocular) view of the same object. The brain then processes the two
images into a three-dimensional view of the object. If only one eye is functioning, the view of the object is flat, much
like viewing a photograph.