1. From: The TFOS International Workshop on Contact Lens Discomfort: Report of the Subcommittee on Neurobiology
Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci ;54(11):TFOS71-TFOS97. doi: /iovs
Figure Legend:
Subbasal nerve fibers. (a) Schematic representation of the human corneal epithelial innervation. Three-dimensional reconstruction from digital sections was obtained with confocal laser scanning microscopy of excised corneas. Stromal nerve bundles in the subepithelial plexus penetrate the epithelial basal lamina, turn abruptly at acute angles, and divide into multiple daughter fibers called subbasal nerves. The subbasal nerves run horizontally within the deepest part of the basal epithelial cell layer and give rise to numerous, superficially directed intraepithelial terminals. Reproduced with permission from figure 2 in Guthoff RF, Wienss H, Hahnel C, Wree A. Epithelial innervation of human cornea: a three-dimensional study using confocal laser scanning fluorescence microscopy. Cornea. 2005;24:608–613. Copyright 2005 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. BEP, basal epithelial plexus; SEP, subepithelial plexus. (b) A subepithelial nerve fiber (short arrows) in a human cornea penetrates (circle) Bowman's layer and the epithelial basal lamina to form an “epithelial leash formation” composed of multiple radially directed subbasal nerves (long arrows) of varying diameters. The nerves in this figure (and in Figs. 2a, 3) have been stained immunohistochemically with primary antiserum against the pan-neuronal marker neurotubulin. Scale bar: 100 μm. (c) The central portion of the human subbasal nerve plexus. Nerve tracings are constructed from a montage of 575 in vivo confocal microscopy images. The SNFs radiate toward the periapical cornea, where they form a gentle whorl-like complex. Scale bar: 1 mm. Reproduced with permission from figure 3a in Lum E, Golebiowski B, Swarbrick HA. Mapping the corneal sub-basal nerve plexus in orthokeratology lens wear using in vivo laser scanning confocal microscopy. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2012;53:1803–1809. Copyright 2012 Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology.
Date of download: 11/11/2017
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