cornea

The cornea is the transparent front part of the eye which covers the iris, pupil, and anterior chamber. Along with the anterior chamber and lens, the cornea refracts light, accounting for approximately two-thirds of the eye's total optical power. In humans, the refractive power of the cornea is approximately 43 dioptres. The cornea can be reshaped by surgical procedures such as LASIK.

AI overview

The cornea is the clear front layer of your eye that sits over the colored part (iris) and pupil, and it works together with other eye structures to bend light so you can see clearly. It does most of the heavy lifting for your eye's focusing power—about two-thirds of it—which is why keeping it healthy is important for good vision.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Key facts

Anatomy.Latin: cornea
Anatomy.Name: Cornea
Anatomy.part_of: Front of eye
Anatomy.system: Visual system
Anatomy.Function: Refract light
Anatomy.Image: Cornea.png
Anatomy.Caption: Schematic diagram of the right human eye showing the cornea as separated from the sclera by the corneal limbus

via Wikipedia infobox

Research

103,069 papers

Anatomy and physiology of the cornea.ReviewJournal of cataract and refractive surgery · 2011DelMonte DW, Kim TDOI: 10.1016/j.jcrs.2010.12.037
Aquaporins in the Cornea.ReviewInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2024Melnyk S, Bollag WBDOI: 10.3390/ijms25073748
Angiography of the Limbus and Cornea.ReviewInternational ophthalmology clinics · 2019Wang Y, Chodosh JDOI: 10.1097/IIO.0000000000000283
A single cell atlas of human cornea that defines its development, limbal progenitor cells and their interactions with the immune cells.The ocular surface · 2021Collin J, Queen R, Zerti D et al.DOI: 10.1016/j.jtos.2021.03.010
Single-cell transcriptomics identifies limbal stem cell population and cell types mapping its differentiation trajectory in limbal basal epithelium of human cornea.The ocular surface · 2021Li DQ, Kim S, Li JM et al.DOI: 10.1016/j.jtos.2020.12.004
Corneal cross-linking.ReviewProgress in retinal and eye research · 2025Hafezi F, Kling S, Hafezi NL et al.DOI: 10.1016/j.preteyeres.2024.101322
Laser refractive correction of presbyopia.ReviewIndian journal of ophthalmology · 2024Ganesh S, Sriganesh SSDOI: 10.4103/IJO.IJO_3074_23
Primary Culture of Cornea-Limbal Epithelial Cells In Vitro.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2020O'Sullivan FDOI: 10.1007/978-1-0716-0599-8_3

via PubMed

Wikidata facts

Image: Vertical section human cornea-Gray871.png

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Commons gallery: Cornea
NCI Thesaurus ID: C12342
Commons category: Cornea

Sources (6)

via Wikidata · CC0

~16 min read

Article

16 sections

Contents

Structure
Microanatomy
Nerve supply
Function
Refraction
Transparency
Clinical significance
Management
Surgical procedures
Other procedures
Corneal retention and permeability in topical drug delivery to the eye
Transplantation
See also
References
General references
External links

While the cornea contributes most of the eye's focusing power, its focus is fixed. Accommodation (the refocusing of light to better view near objects) is accomplished by changing the geometry of the lens. Medical terms related to the cornea often start with the prefix "kerat-" from the Greek word κέρας, horn.