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Retrograde degeneration moves toward the neuron's cell body. In the visual system, the retinal ganglion cells have their bodies in the retina and project axons to the brain. If a lesion occurs somewhere along the brain’s visual pathways, the degenerative process can travel back along the axon toward the retinal cell bodies, producing retrograde changes in the eye. So this type of degeneration is described as brain toward the eye. By contrast, degeneration that travels away from the cell body along the axon toward the brain is termed anterograde (or Wallerian) degeneration.