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Glaucoma Begins in Mid-Brain, Not in Eye, Research Shows
Early signs of glaucoma can be detected in the brain, according
to a new study that may trigger a major change in how the disease
is treated.
It has long been believed that glaucoma -- the leading cause of
blindness in the United States -- results from pressure within the
eye that damages the retina and optic nerve, so treatments have
focused on reducing pressure within the eye. However, this new
study suggests that glaucoma is a central nervous system disease
that requires different treatment approaches.
"This is a paradigm shift in how we think about the disease,"
study author David Calkins, director of research at the Vanderbilt
Eye Institute, said in a news release from the Vanderbilt
University Medical Center. "This will have global implications.
This information opens up an entirely new domain of nerve-derived
therapeutics."
In research with lab animals, Calkins and his team found that a
very early mechanism of glaucoma-related vision loss involves
deterioration of communication between the optic nerve and the
mid-brain, which handles information about sensory input such as
sound, heat, cold, pain and pressure.
"If you followed the disease long enough, eventually the optic
nerve, then the retina, show signs of degeneration," Calkins
explained. "So the degeneration works in reverse order. It starts
in the brain and works its way back to the retina so that in the
very latest stages of the disease, the earliest structures, the one
nearest the eye, are the last to go."
The study findings were released online March 1 in advance of
publication in an upcoming print issue of the journal Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences.
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