Week 5 Flashcards
What are the three sections of the Visual Pathway?
- Image formation 2. Transduction 3. Visual processing
What is the visual pathway?
Eye, retina, thalamus, primary visual cortex (occipital lobe), extrastriate cortex (occipital lobe), extended cortex (temporal and parietal lobes)
What are the key concepts of the visual pathway?
Decussation, retinotopic organisation, cortical magnification and receptive fields
What is Decussation?
Left visual field to right cortex, right visual field to left cortex, 50% of optic nerves cross at the optic chiasm
Optic nerves
Bilateral visual fields
Optic traits
Unilateral visual fields
Retinotopic
Adjacent points in the visual field map into adjacent points on the retina and mapping is maintained through processing
Cortical magnification
More cortex dedicated to processing the central visual field than the periphery-converge
Receptive fields
Particular neutrons respond depending on how the retina is stimulated and refer to regions on the retina which stimulate or inhibit the cells
Characteristics of Receptive Fields (RF)
Gives cells clues about cell’s function and can be small (high spatial resolution) or large (low Sofia’s resolution. RFs typically have both exciting and inhibitory regions.
The function of the eye
Form an image, generate a neural signal, early neural processing of signal and transmit the visual signal to the brain.
Forming the image
Cornea, lens, iris and pupil
Transduction/ processing
Retina, fovea
Retina
Receptors which transducer the light signal to neural signal.
Early processing of signal.
Retinal Ganglion Cells (RGC) final layer - axons to the brain
Retina is brain - processing centre
Fovea
Small specialised high acuity central vision.
Solves the “backward wiring problem.
Transmit to brain
Optic disc, optic nerve
Blind spot
In each eye
Vision is constructed
Edges are continued
Surfaces are interpolated
5 different types of neutrons in the retina
- Receptors
- Horizontal cells
- Bipolar cells
- Amacrine cells
- Retinal ganglion cells
The process of the retina
Light -> receptors-> bipolar -> RGCs -> brain
Horizontal and amacrine cells
Lateral communication
Cone and rod receptors
Transduction
Amacrine, bipolar and horizontal cells
Early processing
Retinal ganglion cells
Transmission to the brain
Cones
Lower sensitivity
High positional acuity
Photopic vision (well lit) colour perception
Types of cones
Short, medium and long wavelength
Rods
High sensitivity
Low positional acuity - high convergence
Scotopic vision (low light)