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The eyes sit in bony cavities called the orbits, in the skull. There are six extraocular muscles that control eye movements. The front visible part of the eye is made up of the whitish sclera, a coloured iris, and the pupil. A thin layer called the conjunctiva sits on top of this. The front part is also called the anterior segment of the eye.
The sclera's blood vessels are mainly on the surface. Along with the vessels of the conjunctiva (which is a thin layer covering the sclera), those in the episclera render the inflamed eye bright red. [6] In many vertebrates, the sclera is reinforced with plates of cartilage or bone, together forming a circular structure called the sclerotic ring.
The uvea (/ ˈ j uː v i ə /; [1] derived from Latin: uva meaning "grape"), also called the uveal layer, uveal coat, uveal tract, vascular tunic or vascular layer, is the pigmented middle layer of the three concentric layers that make up an eye, precisely between the inner retina and the outer fibrous layer composed of the sclera and cornea.
The interior of the eye lacks lymph vessels but is highly vascularized, and many immune cells reside in the uvea, including mostly macrophages, dendritic cells, and mast cells. [1] These cells fight off intraocular infections, and intraocular inflammation can manifest as uveitis (including iritis) or retinitis. The cornea of the eye is ...
Cells from both the mesodermal and the ectodermal tissues contribute to the formation of the eye. Specifically, the eye is derived from the neuroepithelium, surface ectoderm, and the extracellular mesenchyme which consists of both the neural crest and mesoderm. [2] [3] [4] Neuroepithelium forms the retina, ciliary body, iris, and optic nerves.
The iris consists of two layers: the front pigmented fibrovascular layer known as a stroma and, behind the stroma, pigmented epithelial cells.. The stroma is connected to a sphincter muscle (sphincter pupillae), which contracts the pupil in a circular motion, and a set of dilator muscles (dilator pupillae), which pull the iris radially to enlarge the pupil, pulling it in folds.
The globe of the eye, or bulbus oculi, is the frontmost sensory organ of the human ocular system, going from the cornea at the front, to the anterior part of the optic nerve at the back. More simply, the eyeball itself, as well as the ganglion cells in the retina that eventually transmit visual signals through the optic nerve. [1]
The basic light-processing unit of eyes is the photoreceptor cell, a specialized cell containing two types of molecules bound to each other and located in a membrane: the opsin, a light-sensitive protein; and a chromophore, the pigment that absorbs light. Groups of such cells are termed "eyespots", and have evolved independently somewhere ...