Whats the protective layer that surrounds the optic nerve?!


Question:

Whats the protective layer that surrounds the optic nerve?

I had my eyes checked out and they said that the protective layer around the optic nerve has moved apart a little in my right eye, but they said it occurs in some people and that it is normal... anyone know what that protective layer is called? (they told me and I forgot ): )


Answers:

The outer portion of the optic nerve can't be seen from the outside, nor from the inside of the eye.

So I'm assuming that someone looked into your eye, at the back of your eye, saw the nerve and made that comment.

There are three layers to the eye (basically). The outer layer is white, the sclera. It has lots of collagen fibers that are all crossed and have fluid in them. Makes them white. When they get to the front of the eye, that outer layer becomes clear. The collagen fibers are parallel, going in different directions in different layers. The inside layer, the endothelium is a single layer of cells that pumps water into the center of the eye...out of the cornea. So that part is clear. It's dehydrated.

As you look through the cornea, you can see that the eye color is blue, or brown, or gray, or hazel, or....(never, never guess wrong if a girl asks you her eye color,....just a side advice thing...).

This colored part, the iris, has a hole in it, the pupil, behind which sits the lens. The lens AND the cornea focus light onto the retina in the back.

The iris is connected to a vascular layer in the back of the eye which lays next to the white part.

So we've got the white part which is clear in the front. And the blood vessel layer which is colored in the front with a hole in it.

The third layer is the retina. The retina takes pictures and sends them to the brain via the nerve.

As the nerve is connected to the sclera, the white part, the other layers approach the nerve and usually stop right at the edge of the nerve. But in some people, that vascular layer does NOT reach the nerve and leaves a crescent of white part visible. This happens a lot in near sighted people. Also, the outer part of the retina lays against a pigment layer called the Retinal Pigment Epithelium. Sometimes this layer which is beneath the retina and in front of the vascular layer, doesn't reach the edge of the optic nerve either. It leaves a crescent too, but a different type of crescent than the choroid (vascular layer).

Sounds to me like you have either a myopic crescent or a pigment crescent. When your eye stopped growing at about the age of 8, this is how it ended up.

It's not a disease. It's just a there thing.




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