Is Glaucoma a Brain Disease?

Findings from a recent study published in Translational Vision Science & Technology show that the brain — not the eye — controls the cellular process that leads to glaucoma. The results may help develop potential treatments for one of the world’s leading causes of irreversible blindness. During the study, vision specialists and ophthalmologists describe how they performed data and symmetry analysis of 47 patients with moderate to severe glaucoma in both eyes. “As age and other insults to ocular health take their toll on each eye, discrete bundles of the small axons within the larger optic nerve are sacrificed so the rest of the axons can continue to carry sight information to the brain,” said one author of the study, “This quiet intentional sacrifice of some wires to save the rest, when there are decreasing resources to support them all (apoptosis), is analogous to pruning some of the limbs on a stressed fruit tree so the other branches can continue to bear healthy fruit.” The research is the first evidence found in humans that the brain plays a part in pruning the optic nerve axon cells. To read more about this study, click here.