UC Irvine

For years, diabetic retinopathy has been defined based on vascular lesions, and neural abnormalities were not regarded as important. This review summarizes evidence that the neural retina has important effects on the retinal vasculature under normal conditions, and the interaction between the retinal neuroglial cells and vascular function is altered in diabetes. Importantly, new evidence raises a possibility that abnormalities within retinal neuroglial cells (notably photoreceptors) might actually be causing or initiating the vascular disease in diabetic retinopathy.