Chapter 13: The Occipital Lobes and Networks

No function is so strongly represented in cerebral cortex as vision (from slides)

- Within occipital cortex and parts of parietal, temporal, and frontal cortex

13.1 Occipital-Lobe Anatomy

Topographic projection of visual field: Primary (V1) and secondary (V2) visual projection areas in occipital cortex
(from slides)

- Occipital lobe distinguished from parietal lobe by parietal-occipital sulcus (from TB)
- No clear landmarks separates occipital cortex from temporal or parietal cortex
- Prominent features of occipital lobe
o Calcarine sulcus: most of primary visual cortex, V1
o Lingual gyrus: includes part of visual cortical regions V2 and VP
o Fusiform gyrus: contains V4

Subdivisions of the Occipital Cortex

- V1
o Highly laminated/ complex laminar organisation (contains >6 layers in neocortex)
o Cortical layer IV has four distinct layers and appears as a thick stripe, giving visual cortex nickname of
“striate cortex”
o Functionally heterogenous
 - V2
o Functionally heterogenous
- Primary (V1) and secondary (v2) visual projection areas in occipital cortex: topographic projection of visual
field

From Chapter 8: Most visual input via lateral geniculate body (LGB) through V1 on to V2 and subsequently to
specialsied secondary areas (from slides)
- Portion of visual input ‘skips’ V1 and goes directly to V2 and subsequently to secondary areas
- V3a (form) and V3 (form of moving objects)
- V4 (color, form)
- V5 (motion detection)

Redbox: heterogeneous function (small areas specialised)

Function of color processing (from slides)

- Integral in analysing position, depth, motion and structure of objects
o Occipital visual areas (V1-V5) together enable elementary visual perception: location, form, color,
motion
- Dogs and cats have no color vision -> reduced visual capacities compared to humans
- Distributes across V1, V2, and V4
- Facilitates fast object recognition (eg. Ripe fruit), but also perception of object motion and position
(particularly in 3D space: depth vision)
- Color is important property of visual perception in primates (man, apes) -> for enhancing survival

Connections of the Visual Cortex

- V1 (striate cortex) is first processing level, receiving largest input from lateral geniculate nucleus of thalamus
and projects to other occipital regions
- V2, second processing level, also projects to other occipital regions
- After V2, 3 distinct parallel pathways emerge to parietal cortex and inferior temporal cortex for further
processing: dorsal, ventral and STS streams
“Visual Streams” (from slides)
- Parietal Cortex (“dorsal stream”)
o Visual guidance of movement (grasping, catching, avoiding objects)
o “Vision for action”
o Egocentric orientation in space: determining spatial location of objects relative to self
- Inferior part of temporal cortex (“ventral stream”)
o Visual recognition of objects like tools, hands, faces
o “Vision for recognition” or perception
o Specific responses of cells to complex objects (eg. Faces)
- Cortex within superior temporal sulcus (“STS stream”)
o Visuospatial functions
▪ Spatial localisation of objects
▪ Spatial memory (“visual space”)
▪ Perceiving specific types of movements, eg. Body language
o STS has polysensory neurons combining information from dorsal and ventral stream for
categorisation (Chapter 15)
o Allocentric location: determining spatial location of objects relative to each other

Frontal cortex (a.o. frontal eye fields for control of eye movements): active visual search behavior (“action for vision”)
(from slides)
- Selective visual attention for external world
o With parietal cortex: for visual control of movements
o With temporal cortex: for object recognition

13.2 A Theory of Occipital-Lobe Function

See Afferent System and V1

Visual Networks extending beyond the Occipital Lobe

Visual regions beyond the Occipital Lobe
- Shows that vision is not unitary but consists of many highly specific forms of processing, can be organised
into 5 general categories:
o Vision for action
o Action for vision
o Visual Recognition
o Visual Space
o Visual Attention

1. Vision for Action

a. Visual processing required to direct specific movements
b. Visual areas guide all kinds of specific movements
c. Sensitive to target’s movements
2. Action for Vision selective attention
a. “top-down” process: viewer searches for target object and selectively attends to it
b. Eg. Scanning face -> multiple eye movmeents to eyes and mouth, more eye scans to left visual field
(right side of person’s face)
i. Scanning bias only in processing faces
3. Visual Recognition
a. Recognise objects and respond to visual information
4. Visual Space
a. Objects have location relative to individual (egocentric space), and relative to one another
(allocentric space)
5. Visual Attention
a. Cannot process all available visual information -> hence attend to specific aspects of visual input
selectively
Visual Pathways Beyond the Occipital Lobe
Milner-Goodale Model: dorsal stream thought of as a set of systems for online visual control of action
- Evidence as follows:
o Visual neurons in posterior parietal regions unique; they are active only when brain acts on visual
information
o Visual posterior parietal neurons therefore act as interface between analysis of visual world and
motor action taken on it
o Most visual impairments associated with lesions to parietal cortex are characterised as visuomotor or
visuospatial

Imaging Studies of Dorsal and Ventral Streams

- Haxy and colleagues (1999)
o Different regions take part in different tasks
o Motion detection activates regions along STS and ventral temporal lobe
o Color perception activates lingual gyrus

Top-Down Predictions in Vision

- Network between prefrontal cortex and both occipital and temporal lobes make prefrontal cortex the
information provider for enhancing visual processing speed

13.3 Disorders of Visual Pathways

• Afferent system
• V1
• Secondary Occpital Cortex Areas
• Streams from Occipital Lobe to Other Lobes

On the 2 key elements which brain organises visual field: (from slides)
1) R half of visual field falls on L half of each retina, which sends projections to LH and vice-versa
a. Damage to V1 will typically affect ‘sight’ in BOTH eyes (visual field), while damage outside CNS affects
one eye
2) Different parts of visual field are topographically represented in parts of V1
a. Damage to a specific V1 area will lead to loss of ‘sight’ in a specific part of the visual world
Visual defects (from slides)
- Monocular blindness: destruction of retina or optic nerve of one eye -> loss of sight in that eye
- Bitemporal hemianopia: lesion of medial region of optic chiasms which severs the crossing fibers -> loss of
vision of both temporal fields
- Nasal hemianopia: lesion of lateral chiasm -> loss of vision of one nasal field
- Homonymous hemianopia: complete cuts of optic tract, lateral geniculate body, or area V1 -> blindness of
one entire visual field
- Quadrantanopia: lesion is partial -> part (quadrant) of visual field destroyed
- Macular sparing: unilateral lesions (usually large) to visual cortex
o Does not always occur
o Many with visual-cortex lesions have complete loss of vision in one-quarter (quadrantanopia) or one-
half (hemianopia) of fovea
▪ Border between impaired and intact visual field or quadrant is sharp -> due to anatomical
segregation between L and R and upper and lower visual fields
- Scotomas: small occipital lobe lesions -> small blind spots in visual field
o Usually unaware of scotomas due to nystagmus (constant tiny involuntary eye movements) and
visual system “spontaneously filling in”
13.4 Disorders of Cortical Function
Afferent System and V1

Lesion of V1 -> cortical blindless (= loss of subjective visual experience) (from slides)
- Some submodalities may be preserved
- “Blindsight”: patient may be able to detect location, color, or motion of the stimulus without “seeing” the
stimulus. (will say they cannot see but can correctly answer questions regarding sight)
- How?: Some visual input to secondary or tertiary visual cortex bypassing V1 (via V2 or a pathway via superior
colliculus and thalamus)

Visual disorders in Secondary Areas: (from slides)

Lesions of V3, V4, and V5 lead to specific disturbances in visual processing:
- V3 and V4: loss of form perception (eg. Not recognising objects on basis of line drawings)
o Since both V3 and V4 processes form, large lesion of both V3 and V4 required to eliminate form
perception
- V4: cortical color blindness and sometimes loss of ability to think/ imagine or remember colors, even when
dreaming (loss of color cognition)
- V5: not seeing objects when moving (motion blindness)
o Inactivation of V5 in healthy persons using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has similar effect

Patient D.F.: (from slides)

- Had visual agnosia
- Bilateral damage to LO region and unilaterally at junction of left parietal and occipital cortex
- Can draw objects from memory, difficulty drawing objects from life, difficulty copying line drawings -> form
perception defect

- Can use visual info to guide movements to object (dorsal stream)

- Cannot use visual info to recognise same objects (ventral stream)

13.5 Visual Agnosia (from slides)

- Ventral Stream Lesions can lead to different types of visual agnosias
o Visual object agnosia: problems with recognition of objects and spatial patterns (like handwriting)
Visual Object Agnosias Other Agnosias
Apperceptive agnosia Prosopagnosia
Associative agnosia Visuospatial agnosia
Alexia
- Keep in mind that different symptom patterns make classification difficult

Object Agnosias
- Apperceptive agnosia: able to perceive elementary aspects of stimulus (features such as lines or colors) but
no integration into meaningful image; mostly caused by large bilateral or R-sided lesions
o Visual form agnosia: unable to recognize or copy form of objects
 o Simultagnosia: Can perceive basic shape of object, but unable to perceive more than one object at a
time
▪ Dorsal simultagnosia: perceive only one object at same time
▪ Ventral simultagnosia: can see more than one object at a time, but unable to perceive
unified picture
• Damage to left inferior occipital region
- Associative agnosia: inability to recognise object despite its apparent perception
o able to perceive integrated image, also able to copy it, but not able to identify it (object remains
meaningless; probably problems with semantic categorisation);
o generally associated with L-sided lesions

Other Visual Agnosias

- Prosopagnosia: difficulties with recognition of identity of faces
o Generally proper recognition in case of typical facial features; also proper recognition of emotional
expressions (but not of personal identity)
o Mostly in case of bilateral lesions but R-sided damage plays larger role than L-sided damage
- Visuospatial agnosia: difficulties with perception and recognition of spatial environment; mostly with R-sided
lesions
- Alexia: difficulties with reading; recognition of letters ok but problems with
o Integrating letters into a word (type of apperceptive agnosia), or
o Recognising integrated word (type of associative agnosia); mostly with L-sided lesions
- Lesions of dorsal stream (inclusive posterior parietal cortex) may be associated with
o Disturbances of visually guided movements, for example, grasping or avoiding objects: optic ataxia
▪ Patient sees object correctly but cannot adjust movements to object
o Problems with spatial orientation
Visual disorders show that our subjective experience of objects as being a unified whole is deceptive – many forms of
dissociation possible
Neuroimaging: visual perception, recognition, and imagination have certain cortical representations in common
Nevertheless, clinical dissociations are possible eg.
- Not being able to recognize a specific stimulus
- But able to correctly imagine the stimulus

13.6 Visual Imagery

- Patient C.K.
o Can not recognise object, can imagine and draw them from memory
▪ Implies some dissociation between object perception and generating images
- Mental rotation of objects
o Object recognition: RH ventral stream visual areas
o Mental rotation: RH dorsal stream visual areas
- Aphantasia: inability to generate mental images