The higher visual centres

Fusion of retinal images

Partial decussation is an arrangement that serves the needs of frontally directed eyes and permits binocular vision, which consists in the fusion of the responses of both eyes to a single object—more loosely, one speaks of the fusion of the retinal images. In many lower mammals, with laterally directed eyes and therefore limited binocular vision, the degree of decussation is much greater, so that in the rat, for example, practically all of the optic nerve fibres pass to the opposite side of the brain.

The fibres of the optic tracts relay their messages to neurons in those parts of the diencephalon called the lateral geniculate bodies, and from the lateral geniculate bodies the messages are relayed to neurons in the occipital cortex of the same side. (The occipital cortex is the outer substance in the posterior portion of the brain.)

The visual field

If one eye is fixed on a point in space, the visual field for this eye may be thought of as the part of a surface of a sphere on to which all visible objects are projected. The limits to this field will be determined by the sensitivity and extent of the retina and the accessibility of light rays from the environment. Experimentally or clinically, the field is measured on a perimeter, a device for ascertaining the point on a given meridian where a white spot just appears or disappears from vision when moved along this meridian. (A meridian is a curve on the surface of a sphere that is formed by the intersection of the sphere surface and a plane passing through the centre of the sphere.) The field is recorded on a chart. On the nasal side, the field is restricted to about 60° from the midline. This is due to the obstruction caused by the nose, since the retina extends nearly as far forward on the temporal side of the globe as on the nasal side. It is customary to refer to the binocular visual field as that common to the two eyes, the uniocular field being the extreme temporal (outside) region peculiar to each eye. The binocular field is determined in the horizontal meridian by the nasal field of each eye, and so will amount to about 60° to either side of the vertical meridian.

Lateral geniculate body

The dorsal (posterior) nucleus of the lateral geniculate body, where the optic tract fibres relay, has six layers, and the crossed fibres relay in layers 1, 4, and 6, while the uncrossed relay in layers 2, 3, and 5; thus, at this level, the impulses from the two eyes are kept separate, and when the discharges in geniculate neurons are recorded electrically it is rare to find any responding to stimuli in both eyes.

Striate area

The optic tract fibres make synapses with nerve cells in the respective layers of the lateral geniculate body, and the axons of these third-order nerve cells pass upward to the calcarine fissure (a furrow) in each occipital lobe of the cerebral cortex. This area is called the striate area because of bands of white fibres—axons from neurons in the retina—that run through it. It is also identified as Brodmann area 17. It is at this level that the impulses from the separate eyes meet at common cortical neurons, so that when the discharges in single cortical neurons are recorded it is usual to find that they respond to light falling in one or the other eye. It is probable that it is when the retinal messages have reached this level of the central nervous system, and not before, that the human subject becomes aware of the visual stimulus, since destruction of the area causes absolute blindness in humans. Because of the partial decussation, however, the removal of only one striate cortex will not cause complete blindness in either eye, since only messages from two halves of the retinas will have been blocked; the same will be true if one optic tract is severed or one lateral geniculate body is destroyed. The result of such lesions will be half-blindness, or hemianopia, the messages from one half of the visual field being obliterated.

Pupillary pathways

Some of the fibres in the optic tracts do not relay in the lateral geniculate bodies but pass instead to a midbrain region—the pretectal centre—where they mediate (transmit) reflex alterations in the size of the pupil. Thus, in bright light, the pupils are constricted; this happens by virtue of the pupillary light reflex mediated by these special nerve fibres. Removal of the occipital cortex, although it causes blindness in the opposite visual field, does not destroy the reaction of the pupils to light; if the optic nerve is cut, however, the eye will be both completely blind and also unreactive to light falling on this eye. The pupil of the blind eye will react to light falling on the other eye by virtue of a decussation in the pupillary reflex pathway.

Point-to-point representation

Because of the ordered manner in which the optic tract fibres relay in the lateral geniculate bodies and from there pass in an orderly fashion to the striate area, when a given point on the retina is stimulated, the response recorded electrically in either the lateral geniculate body or the striate area is localized to a small region characteristic for that particular retinal spot. When the whole retinal field is stimulated in this point-to-point way, and the positions on the geniculate or striate gray matter on which the responses occur are plotted, it is possible to plot on these regions of the brain maps of the retinal fields or, more usually, maps of the visual fields.

Visuopsychic or circumstriate areas

Area 17, the striate area, is the primary visual centre in the sense that, in primates at any rate, all of the geniculate fibres project onto it and none projects onto another region of the cortex. There are two other areas containing neurons that have close connections with the eye; these are the parastriate and peristriate areas, or Brodmann areas 18 and 19, respectively, in close anatomical relationship to one another and to area 17. They are secondary visual areas in the sense that messages are relayed from area 17 to area 18 and from area 18 to area 19, and, because area 17 does not relay to regions beyond area 18, these circumstriate areas are the means whereby visual information is brought into relation with more remote parts of the cortex. Thus, in writing, the eyes direct the activities of the fingers, which are controlled by a region of the frontal cortex, so that one may presume that visual information is relayed to this frontal region. In the monkey, bilateral destruction of the areas causes irrecoverable loss of a learned visual discrimination, but this can be relearned after the operation. In humans, lesions in this region are said to cause disturbances in spatial orientation and stereoscopic vision.