2 From the Eye to the Brain

Key concepts 

After visual information leaves the eye through the optic nerve, part of the information crosses at the optic chiasm so that information from the left visual field of both eyes continues to the right hemisphere of the brain, and information from the right visual field of both eyes continues to the left hemisphere of the brain. At this point, the information is passed along the optic tract to the lateral geniculate nuclei. From there, the information follows the optic radiations to the primary visual cortex in the occipital lobes of the brain.

 

Diagram of the visual pathways with the left visual field colored red and the right visual field colured blue. Follows the pathway from the eye, through the optic nerve, optic chiasm, LGN of the thalamus through the optic radiations to the primary visual cortex
Miquel Perello Nieto, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

This 26-minute video on the visual pathway provides an overview of the entire visual system, from the eye to the brain (Stansaas, 2018).

 

References

Stansaas, S. [Moran CORE]. (2018, February 8). The visual pathway: Neuroanatomy video lab – Brain dissections [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/Hn2tF-puPQ4?si=Pl3lPvNk26FZLTuG

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Psycho-educational Assessments of Blind and Low Vision Children Copyright © 2024 by Jennifer Engle; May Nguyen; and Adam Wilton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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