RESUMO
Studies on glaucoma have been focused only on optic nerve damage and aqueous humor dynamic for many years. In recent years, with the advances in understanding of glaucoma and visual sciences, and the development of a neurological cross-discipline, new interdisciplinary problems have been raised. Notably, the question of whether glaucoma is only an optic nerve disease. Is it a disease that begins from the eye, and then involves the whole visual pathway? Or is it a particular central nervous system disease, which manifests itself in the eye? The answers to these problems are inconclusive so far, but there are reasons to believe that glaucoma is a disease with multi-level, multi-factor damage to the entire visual pathway involved. Its mechanisms are complex and involve cross-synaptic damage, visual pathway blood disorders, blood-brain barrier disorders, and so on. As we come to understand that glaucoma is an ocular and central never system neurodegenerative disease, we may better understand the pathogenesis of glaucoma and therefore establish comprehensive treatment strategies for this disease.
