Project details

Diabetic eye disease threatens the sight of an ever-growing number of people. It has recently become clear that control of blood flow may be abnormal long before the structural damage of diabetic retinopathy can be diagnosed. This may actually contribute to later permanent damage. Understanding such early abnormalities may allow better predictions about the future progression of eye disease and may suggest new treatments to delay or treat retinopathy. One such defect is the loss of the ability to adjust retinal blood flow to match activity in retinal nerves. This process, known as neurovascular coupling, depends on relaxation of local blood vessels, which increases blood flow. The response relies on communication from active nerves to the muscle in the wall of retinal blood vessels via connecting cells known as glial cells.

This study will investigate why neurovascular coupling fails, using retinas viewed through a microscope that can record changes in blood vessel diameter. This mimics conditions in the eye while allowing relevant cells (nerves, glia or the muscle of blood vessels) to be stimulated selectively. By comparing the responses in retinas from diabetic and control groups, the project will identify at what point the coupling process has failed. The project will also investigate exactly which molecules are involved by looking at how the levels and distribution of relevant proteins change in diabetes. This work will provide an understanding of how diabetes interferes with retinal blood flow regulation, which will lead to new functional tests and sight preserving treatments.