Science Nation: Seeing Beyond the Visual Cortex

Graphic of spherical object with multiple web-like tubular connections. Caption: They can't see any information in their visual world.

Tony Ro, a neuroscientist at The City College of New York, is artificially recreating a condition called blindsight in his lab. Blindsight is a condition that some patients experience after having damage to the primary visual cortex in the back of their brains. What happens in these patients is they go cortically blind, yet they can still discriminate visual information. With support from the National Science Foundation, Ro is developing a clearer picture of how other parts of the brain, besides the visual cortex, respond to visual stimuli. He says understanding and mapping those alternative pathways might be the key to new rehabilitative therapies.

(Source: DCMP)

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  • Science Nation: Seeing Beyond the Visual Cortex

    Type:
    Video
    Format:
    Streaming
    Accommodations:
    English Audio Descriptions - Visual, English Captions - Auditory
    Languages:
    English
    License:
    OER
    Author:
    National Science Foundation
    Length:
    3 minutes