血管在器官的功能上扮演很重要的角色。因此，血管發育的過程是一個重要的研究主題。視網膜血管的發育過程是非常精確且由許多因子調控的，不正常發育的血管會導致早產兒視網膜病變以及視網膜營養缺乏，甚至可能導致胎兒失明。過去的研究顯示全暗養殖出生後的老鼠會表現更多血管內皮生長因子進而造成血管新生。現代社會經常暴露在長期的光照之下，這種環境可能會對發育中的胎兒造成影響。本研究使用內生性光敏感視網膜節細胞剔除的老鼠和視黑蛋白基因剔除的老鼠以及在恆亮環境下發育的老鼠，我們檢視出生後8天、11天和15天的老鼠視網膜血管發育。結果顯示在持續光照下養殖的老鼠表現正常的血管發育；而失去內生性光敏感視網膜節細胞的老鼠，不只在血管發育的速度上變快，在不同層血管之間的距離也變寬。由此得知，內生性光敏感視網膜節細胞或許可以在持續的光照下自我調節，且內生性光敏感視網膜節細胞對於視網膜的血管發育有重大影響。這項研究探索了神經血管的交互作用的可調控性，希望這項研究在未來能對於器官內血管發育的研究留下一些線索。

Blood vessels play an important role in the function of organs. The process of developing vessels is a solid topic to study as well. In the eye ball, the developmental process of retinal vessels is very precise and is controlled by a lot of factors. Abnormal development of retinal vessels may cause retinopathy of prematurity and nutrient lacking in the retina or even blind after birth. It has been reported that the dark-reared mice express more VEGF and angiogenesis in postnatal retina. However, the modern day life frequently exposes to long-term light environment. This type of lifestyle may cause an impact on people’s health, especially the developmental fetus in the pregnant mother. By using ipRGCs and melanopsin knockout mice and the mice under constant light condition, we examined the retinal vascular development in postnatal days 8, 11, and 15. In this study, we found that the progress of retinal vessel development in mice is similar under both 24-hours light and 12-hours light conditions, and loss of ipRGCs not only affects the process of retinal vascular development, but also affects the distance of different retinal vascular layers. These suggest that ipRGCs could self-regulate in constant light environment and control general retinal angiogenesis. This study explores the neurovascular interaction and provides insights for researches of regulating vasculature development in other organs.

摘要 2
Abstract 3
致謝 5
Chapter 1. Introduction 7
Chapter 2. Materials and methods 12
2-1 Animals 12
2-2 Preparation for wholemount retinas 12
2-3 Immunohistochemistry 13
2-4 Retinal angiogenesis quantification 14
2-5 Statistics 15
Chapter 3. Results 16
3-1 24-hours light environment does not affect retinal angiogenesis in postnatal mice. 16
3-2 Loss of ipRGCs affects the retinal angiogenesis in postnatal mice. 18
Chapter 4. Discussion 20
4-1 24-hours light environment does not affect retinal vascular density in postnatal mice. 20
4-2 Interaction between light, ipRGCs, and the retinal dopamine system. 21
4-3 Loss of ipRGCs photosensitivity promotes the retinal angiogenesis and expands the distance between retinal vascular layers in postnatal mice. 23
4-4 The distance between different vascular layers is altered by ipRGCs deletion in postnatal mice. 25
References 28
Figures 32

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