The

choroid The choroid, also known as the choroidea or choroid coat, is a part of the uvea, the vascular layer of the eye, and contains connective tissues, and lies between the retina and the sclera. The human choroid is thickest at the far extreme rear ...

is the middle,

vascular The blood vessels are the components of the circulatory system that transport blood throughout the human body. These vessels transport blood cells, nutrients, and oxygen to the tissues of the body. They also take waste and carbon dioxide away f ...

coat of the eye which resides between the

sclera The sclera, also known as the white of the eye or, in older literature, as the tunica albuginea oculi, is the opaque, fibrous, protective, outer layer of the human eye containing mainly collagen and some crucial elastic fiber. In humans, and som ...

and the

retina The retina (from la, rete "net") is the innermost, light-sensitive layer of tissue of the eye of most vertebrates and some molluscs. The optics of the eye create a focused two-dimensional image of the visual world on the retina, which then ...

. Early in development the choroidal fissure is a groove that extends along the ventral aspect of the

optic stalk The optic vesicles project toward the sides of the head, and the peripheral part of each expands to form a hollow bulb, while the proximal part remains narrow and constitutes the optic stalk. Closure of the choroidal fissure in the optic stalk o ...

. In effect, it is a continuation of the invagination that forms the optic cup during early development in

amniote Amniotes are a clade of tetrapod vertebrates that comprises sauropsids (including all reptiles and birds, and extinct parareptiles and non-avian dinosaurs) and synapsids (including pelycosaurs and therapsids such as mammals). They are disti ...

s. For a period of time this groove extends to the closing lips of the optic cup. During development it is through the choroidal fissure that the retinal vessels enter and leave the eye. While optic neural components (e.g.

axon An axon (from Greek ἄξων ''áxōn'', axis), or nerve fiber (or nerve fibre: see spelling differences), is a long, slender projection of a nerve cell, or neuron, in vertebrates, that typically conducts electrical impulses known as action po ...

s arising from

retinal ganglion cell A retinal ganglion cell (RGC) is a type of neuron located near the inner surface (the ganglion cell layer) of the retina of the human eye, eye. It receives visual information from photoreceptor cell, photoreceptors via two intermediate neuron typ ...

s in the sensory retina) do not lie in the groove that is the choroidal fissure, they do extend through the portions of the optic stalk that form the walls of the fissure. These axons will form the

optic nerve In neuroanatomy, the optic nerve, also known as the second cranial nerve, cranial nerve II, or simply CN II, is a paired cranial nerve that transmits visual system, visual information from the retina to the brain. In humans, the optic nerve i ...

. The fissure is eventually sealed when the lips of the optic cup, as well as the edges of the groove in the

, fuse. Failure of this fissure to close results in coloboma iridis.

References

Human eye anatomy {{developmental-biology-stub