Lesions in primate visual cortex leading to deficits of visual perception
This chapter reports a selective, critical analysis of the contribution of lesions of visual neurons to understand the function of the visual pathways. The analysis highlights more recent studies that have examined the influences of striate and extrastriate lesions in the primate. It specifically discusses the deficits of visual perception caused by lesions in primate visual cortex, e.g., lesions caused by ablation experiments in monkeys, by relating the symptoms caused by the lesions to the physiology of the visual system. It is shown that V4 lesions seem to transiently disrupt colour discrimination learning and to slightly elevate chromatic contrast thresholds, but not to permanently disrupt discrimination of hue differences. A number of lesion studies have generated disruptions of more complex behaviours such as reaching, eye movements, and learning and attention. Moreover, many studies have shown a noteworthy degree of recovery after lesions in both the ventral and the dorsal pathways, although the recovery looks to be much more pronounced in the dorsal than in the ventral pathway.
Keywords: visual neurons, primate visual cortex, lesions, visual perception, visual deficits
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