From species diffusion to poroelasticity in modelling the lamina cribrosa

The Lamina Cribrosa is a part of the optic nerve head acting as a scaffold for collecting the retinal ganglion cell axons. It can be modeled as a poroelastic material where the saturated porosity stands for the vascular network made up of small vessels. Our aim is to study the interaction between porosity, deformation and blood perfusion. To this end we derive a poroelastic model from a model of species diffusion in an elastic material. A few numerical simulations show how an increased intraocular pressure results in a deformation leading to a non uniform porosity and a reduced blood supply to some regions. Ischemia has been recently addressed as a major cause of glaucoma.