Tenon's capsule

The Tenon's capsule (synonyms: Tenon's capsule, vagina bulbi) is part of the ligaments of the eyes, in the eye socket (orbit ) of the people preferred to connective tissue fascia. It separates the sclera from the orbital adipose tissue. At the front of the capsule is about 2 mm posterior to the limbus, grown on the back of the area of ​​the optic nerve exit to the sclera. All the nerves, muscles and blood vessels enter through the Tenon's capsule. While the vortex veins and Ziliargefäße get on their passage points a kind of fixation, exist in the eye muscles so-called gates, which allow the muscles a certain range of motion. A plurality of sliding surfaces (space episcleral ) allowing both a limited mobility of the eyeball within the capsule, as well as the movement of the capsule within the surrounding tissue. The comparison of the eyeball with an articulated head and the Tenon's capsule with a socket is therefore only very approximate. In the area of ​​the Tenon's capsule Bulbusäquators goes into a ring band of dense fibers, the cingulum bulbi.

The capsule is named after the French surgeon Jacques -René Tenon (1724-1816), who in 1806 first described the structure.