With the popularity of electronic devices and the increasing environmental light pollution, more attention has been paid to the damage caused by retinal light irradiation and its pathogenic effects in retinal pigment degeneration, age-related macular degeneration and other diseases.The types of light-retinal tissue reaction are mainly photothermal and photochemical, and the photochemical reaction produced by visible light is closely related to retinal diseases.The parameters of light irradiation include wavelength, energy density and duration, etc.The effect of light irradiation on retinal cells can be influenced by many external factors under different parameters.Many in vitro models of light irradiation on retinal cells have been established to study the mechanism of light irradiation, especially blue light on retinal pigment epithelial cells, photoreceptor cells and nerve cells.Light irradiation can cause oxidative stress, endoplasmic reticulum stress and mitochondrial damage in retinal cells, which activates autophagy and regulates apoptosis.Inflammasome activation and exosomes are also involved in the regulation of light-induced damage to retinal pigment epithelial cells.There are also studies on the potential therapeutic effect of different wavelength light sources on cells.This review discusses the differences in cellular and light irradiation parameters between different models with respect to experimental models of retinal light irradiation in terms of types of light-retinal tissue responses, light irradiation parameters commonly used in biological studies, and retinal pigment epithelium light irradiation models, retinal photoreceptor light irradiation models, and retinal ganglion cell light irradiation models.

Retinal pigment epithelium; Photoreceptor cells; Retinal ganglion cells; Light irradiation; In vitro research models