Individuals with Stargardt's disease can navigate a crowd by using peripheral vision, but reading and recognizing faces can be onerous and shapes and contours may appear distorted. This progressive and devastating visual impairment reflects the loss of light-absorbing photoreceptor cells in the central area of the retina (macula), which is typical of this juvenile form of macular degeneration (1). Yet to understand the cause of photoreceptor cell degeneration in Stargardt's macular degeneration it is necessary to take into account the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), a cell layer lying adjacent to the photoreceptor cells. Because the RPE is vital to the integrity of the photoreceptor cells, the demise of RPE cells brings about the loss of photoreceptors (2).
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Janet R. Sparrow (2003) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: