THE HUMAN VISUAL CORTEX
Annual Review of Neuroscience, (2004)Abstract
The discovery and analysis of cortical visual areas is a major accomplishment
of visual neuroscience. In the past decade the use of noninvasive
functional imaging, particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI), has dramatically increased our detailed knowledge of the
functional organization of the human visual cortex and its relation
to visual perception. The fMRI method offers a major advantage over
other techniques applied in neuroscience by providing a large-scale
neuroanatomical perspective that stems from its ability to image
the entire brain essentially at once. This bird's eye view has the
potential to reveal large-scale principles within the very complex
plethora of visual areas. Thus, it could arrange the entire constellation
of human visual areas in a unified functional organizational framework.
Here we review recent findings and methods employed to uncover the
functional properties of the human visual cortex focusing on two
themes: functional specialization and hierarchical processing.
Description
diverse cognitive systems bib