Experimental Models of Glaucoma

Optic nerve pits are a mono- or bilateral congenital anomaly represented by optic disc depressions of various sizes. In half of the cases, the pits are complicated by edema, central retinal detachment and retinoschisis, and cause visual function decrease. Visual acuity losses can be either insignificant or pronounced. Optic discs pits have been investigated massively over the last century and a half, but their etiology is still underresearched. In recent years, however, due to the development of digital scanning and data processing technologies and the emergence of non-invasive highly informative diagnostic methods, it has become possible to reveal structural and functional changes of the optic disc in vivo, in addition to the traditional detection of histological changes in cadaveric eyes.Glaucomatous process modeling is one of the challenges in ophthalmology. And this is due primarily to the fact that, so far, the main reasons for the onset and progression of glaucoma. Numerous works on experimental research in its core model ocular. However, there are forms of glaucoma, which are independent of the level of intraocular pressure. Ideal model of glaucoma is considered a model with the development of the characteristic symptom in which a key symptom is a slowly progressive excavation of the optic nerve. But given the new knowledge in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative changes in glaucoma in this model should be added and the opportunity to study the brain, vascular factors of progression, the level of neurotransmitters, trophic factors, etc. Therefore, we tried to make the analysis of models of glaucoma in various experimental animals and determine the most appropriate model for studying the pathogenesis of glaucoma.