Diamond P.//Leyla Z.//Yadira I.
I see our blog caught your eye, which is the function of your occipital lobe. Vision!!!
Let us introduce ourselves and then we’ll get started. Our team consists of Leyla, Diamond, and Yadira. We were assigned to research a part of the brain and we chose the Occipital lobe. Now below you’ll find some more information on your Occipital Lobe. Hope you love what you see!
The Occipital Lobe posterior to your frontal lobe. The parietal lobe is superior to your occipital lobe.
It is Bi-lateral to your sagittal plane.
Meaning its located in the rear bottom section of your skull, stretching across your left and right side.
Whenever you look at a car and are able to say/see what color the car is, you are using your Occipital lobe. The Occipital’s primary function is vision perception. The surface area of the human Occipital lobe is about 12% of the total surface area of the neocortex of the brain.
The primary visual cortex, visual receiving area, and the visual association area are the three main components of the Occipital Lobe which sums up to having excellent vision interpretation. Let us find more about these components.
The Primary Visual Cortex- This particular area receives information coming from the retina of your eye. Here your mind is able to define colors and much more. Your primary visual cortex has a pathway in your Optic Tract that connects your cortex with your retina. It is referred to as the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), which is made out of optic nerve fibers. If there is damage in this area, that is what causes any degree of blindness.
The Visual Receiving & Association Area- It is the area that receives the image and then is sent to your association area which is the one that interprets the image. For example you could be looking at a dog but without your association area it wouldn’t be recognized as a dog but simply an object with, say a brown color.
The Occipital lobe is not necessarily vulnerable to injuries because of the location at the back of the brain. With most brain injuries 20% is motor vehicle related and the leading cause is falling which makes up 28% of all brain injuries. However if damage occurs to the Occipital lobe it can cause vision blindness, fully or partial, not being able to identify colors, having visual hallucinations,visual illusions ,word blindness, and difficulties with reading and writing. With damage of vision loss most likely are to occur to one side of the eye for example if the right occipital lobe is injured, the left field of your vision in each eye may be affected and vice versa, and it is not common for someone to have complete blindness. With visual hallucinations it isn’t very common in the occipital lobe when damaged but if it does happen people often hallucinate about the objects around them or near them.
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