Our most important sensory organs
Our eyes are our most important sensory organs. It is estimated that we receive 70 per cent of our information through our vision. We perceive images as visual stimuli via the eyeball. They are transmitted to the brain as electrical impulses via the optic nerve. The eye socket, eyelids, lacrimal glands and ducts protect the eye from injury, dust and sweat. Six muscles that attach to the eyeball ensure that we can move our eyes in all directions.
Our natural camera
As with a camera, the eye also perceives light stimuli, which are combined into images in the brain. The light first enters the eye through the cornea and the pupil. The pupil functions like the aperture of a camera. It is wide open when there is little light and narrowed to a small dot when there is a lot of light. Just like a camera, a lens focuses the incident light on the retina, where the light is converted into electrical signals and transmitted to the brain via the optic nerve.
In a healthy eye, the lens focusses the light rays so that they hit the retina at the point of sharpest vision. In the case of deviations, a visual defect such as short-sightedness, long-sightedness or astigmatism, this can be corrected with glasses. Using refractive surgery, it is also possible to eliminate defective vision completely or to a large extent.
The lens of the camera
The special thing about the lens of the human eye is that it can change its shape and, like the autofocus of the camera, focus on objects that are close or further away. This process is known as accommodation. This ability can diminish with age. Reading glasses compensate for this visual defect. The lens can also become cloudy with age. This results in a cataract, which can be removed during cataract surgery - one of the most frequently performed eye operations at the Clinic for Ophthalmology.
Far more serious is glaucoma, which can lead to visual field loss and ultimately blindness. As it can have various causes, a differentiated glaucoma analysis is required first. The doctors at the Ulm Eye Clinic have extensive experience in the conservative and surgical treatment of glaucoma.
Focusing the lens
An important factor for precise visual acuity is the transparency of the cornea. If it becomes cloudy, the patient's vision is blurred. Corneal transplantation (technical term: keratoplasty) is one of the most promising tissue transplants with a success rate of around 90 per cent. Around 4,000 corneal transplants are carried out in Germany every year, with the total annual requirement estimated at 7,000 transplants. Almost anyone can donate their cornea after their death. The donated corneas are processed in the clinic's cornea bank and made available for transplantation. This has improved the availability of corneal transplants in the region and shortened the waiting time for a corneal transplant. In addition, transplants are immediately available in emergency situations.
