Abstract
Presentation Description :
The death of retinal ganglion cells is a hallmark of glaucoma, which leads to diminished visual function. In addition to the well-characterized intracellular cascades responsible for primary cell death, intercellular movement of toxic molecules via gap junctions between dying neurons and their neighbors appears to play a crucial role in the progression of cell death across the retina. This finding suggests that targeting neuronal gap junctions forms a novel therapeutic strategy for neuroprotection in glaucomatous retinas to thereby preserve visual function.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.