What is Visual cortex?
[[File:visualcortex.gif|right|250px]] [[File:Ventral-dorsal streams.svg|thumb|right|250px|The ''dorsal stream'' (green) and ''ventral stream'' (purple) are shown. They come from primary visual cortex]] The '''visual cortex''' is a part of the [[brain]] that allows [[vision]]. It is relatively thin – between 1.5mm and 2mm in [[human]]s. In [[monkey]]s and [[ape]]s the visual cortex takes up much of their [[brain]]. Physically, the visual cortex is at the back of the brain in the [[occipital lobe]]. [[David Hubel]] and [[Torsten Wiesel]] did research on the visual cortex for many years. They won the 1981 [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine]] for their discoveries about information processing in the [[visual system]]. #Their work in the 1960s and 1970s was on how the visual system developed. They worked on parts of the visual cortex of the [[brain]] which get [[signal]]s from the right or left eye. #Their work describing how signals from the eye are processed by the brain to generate edge detectors, motion detectors, stereoscopic depth detectors and colour detectors. These are building blocks of the visual scene. Research on the primary visual cortex can involve recording [[nerve impulse|action potential]]s from [[electrode]]s within the brain of [[cat]]s, [[ferret]]s, [[rat]]s, [[mouse|mice]], or [[monkey]]s. Alternatively, signals can be recorded outside the animal by [[Electroencephalography|EEG]], [[Magnetoencephalography|MEG]], or [[Functional magnetic resonance imaging|fMRI]]. These techniques gather information without invading the brain. == Primary visual cortex == The primary visual cortex (V1) is the best studied visual area in the brain. This is where the messages arrive from the [[lateral geniculate nuclei]], which are relay stations for information from the [[retina]]. Each lateral geniculate nucleus gets signals from the ''opposite'' visual field. Each V1 sends information to two primary pathways, called the ventral stream and the dorsal stream. * The '''ventral stream''' begins with V1, goes