Where is occipital area

J Cogn Neurosci. The occipital lobe convexity sulci and gyri. JNS - Pubmed citation 6. Distribution of the occipital branches of the posterior cerebral artery. Correlation with occipital lobe infarcts. Pubmed citation 7.

Iaria G, Petrides M. Occipital sulci of the human brain: variability and probability maps. Rajakumar R. Read it at Google Books - Find it at Amazon 9. Neuroanatomy: an Illustrated Colour Text, 5e. Churchill Livingstone. Read it at Google Books - Find it at Amazon Gyri of the human neocortex: an MRI-based analysis of volume and variance.

Pubmed citation Greenberg, Mark S.. Related articles: Anatomy: Brain. Promoted articles advertising. Figure 1: occipital lobe boundaries Figure 1: occipital lobe boundaries. Figure 2: occipital lobe sulci Figure 2: occipital lobe sulci. Figure 3: occipital lobe gyri Figure 3: occipital lobe gyri. Figure 4: visual cortical system Figure 4: visual cortical system. Figure 5: superior view of occipital lobe Figure 5: superior view of occipital lobe.

Lingula : this area receives information from the contralateral inferior retina to gather information about the field of vision. The occipital lobe is heavily dependent on: The eyes, particularly the retinas, which take in and process visual information to then be further processed by the occipital lobe.

The frontal lobe , which contains the brain's motor cortex. Without motor skills, the eyes cannot move or take in information from surrounding regions. The temporal lobe, which helps assign meaning to visual information, in addition to encoding it into memories.

What Happens if the Occipital Lobe is Damaged? The most obvious effect of damage to the occipital lobe is blindness, but occipital lobe damage can have other surprising effects: Epilepsy: Some seizures occur in the occipital lobe, and occipital lobe damage increases vulnerability to seizures.

Difficulties with movement: Even if you are still able to move, changes in depth perception and vision can lead to inappropriate movements and difficulty navigating the visual field. Difficulties perceiving colors, shape, dimension, and size. Difficulty recognizing familiar objects or faces. Hallucinations Inability to recognize or read written words.

Inability to detect that an object is moving. Difficulty reading or writing; for example, the words may appear to move on the page. Difficulty locating objects within the environment, even when you are able to see those objects. Difficulties with fine and gross motor skills, as well as balance. Brain Made Simple. Published September 26, Accessed May 11, Learn More.

Rehman A. Neuroanatomy, Occipital Lobe. StatPearls [Internet]. Published July 6, Occipital lobe. Occipital Lobes.

Centre For Neuro Skills. Spinal Cord Injury. Brain Injury. Finding Treatment. It receives information from the primary visual cortex for further organisation of visual input.

It also passes information to visual areas V3, V4, and V5. The secondary visual cortex also encompasses the ventral stream, which allows information to flow to temporal lobe structures to enable us to process what objects are. Without the ventral stream, we would still be able to see normally, but without the conscious awareness or understanding of what we are seeing. The lateral geniculate body is part of the thalamus and acts as a sensory relay system.

Raw information coming from the outer part of the retinas enters this area for processing before being sent to the primary visual cortex. The lingula is also responsible for processing vision, through gathering information about what is in the field of vision from the side half of the retina.

Together with the help of the lateral geniculate bodies, the lingula creates spatial awareness and gives depth to the visual information. The dorsal stream allows information to flow from the occipital lobes to the parietal lobes, in order for us to process where objects are located. The dorsal stream connects to both the V1 and V2 regions, allowing these areas to send information about the size and shape of objects in our field of vision. Below are a list of symptoms that may occur if an individual has experienced damage within their occipital lobe:.

Due to the occipital lobes being located at the back of the brain, this makes it less susceptible to damage. As is the case with a lot of brain regions, if a part of the occipital lobe becomes damaged, other brain areas can compensate for this damage, meaning overall function is not fully affected. Complete damage to the primary visual cortex, however, can cause cortical blindness. Damage to the primary visual cortex could also affect the way a person recognizes objects by sight.

For instance, when presented with a mobile phone and asked to identify it, they may say they can see a screen and some buttons but may not be able to name the actual object as a whole. However, if given the phone to hold, they would be able to recognize what it is through touch. Similarly, with people, they may not be able to recognize who is standing in front of them by sight.

Once they hear the voice of the person, would they then be able to recognize them by sound. This deficit is known as visual agnosia. Another interesting but exceedingly rare condition is called Riddoch Syndrome. This is a condition whereby an individual is unable to view stationary objects in their field of vision. They can only, however, view people or objects if they are moving. Surgery has proven successful in patients who have occipital lobe epilepsy. However, it is difficult to identify the entire area of issue through brain imaging and has sometimes led to post-operative visual deficit after surgery Harward et al.

A way to strengthen the occipital lobes is to exercize it with visual activities. This could include visualisation exercizes, watching a 3D movie or driving without GPS navigation. Completing exercizes like these should aid in enhancing visual-spatial skills. Thin findings from this found that the grapheme-induced color perception in synaesthesia is caused by activation of the color areas of the visual cortex V4.

They found that damages in this area can lead to word blindness with writing impairments, also known as alexia and agraphia. They found that memory impairments were the only area in which patients with isolated occipital lobe damage demonstrated a decline in performance. Only with additional damage to the temporal regions was executive dysfunction witnessed across numerous domains.