D+Occipital+Cortex

The **occipital lobe** is the [|visual processing center] of the [|mammalian] [|brain] containing most of the anatomical region of the [|visual cortex].[|[][|1][|]] The [|primary visual cortex] is [|Brodmann area 17], commonly called V1 (visual one). Human V1 is located on the [|medial] side of the occipital lobe within the [|calcarine sulcus]; the full extent of V1 often continues onto the posterior pole of the occipital lobe. V1 is often also called striate cortex because it can be identified by a large stripe of myelin, the [|Stria of Gennari]. Visually driven regions outside V1 are called [|extrastriate cortex]. There are many extrastriate regions, and these are specialized for different visual tasks, such as visuospatial processing, color discrimination and motion perception. The name derives from the overlying [|occipital bone], which is named from the Latin oc- + caput, "back of the head".

Function
Significant functional aspects of the occipital lobe is that it contains the primary visual cortex and is the part of the brain where dreams come from. [|Retinal] [|sensors] convey stimuli through the optic tracts to the [|lateral geniculate bodies], where optic radiations continue to the visual cortex. Each visual cortex receives raw sensory information from the outside half of the retina on the same side of the head and from the inside half of the retina on the other side of the head. The cuneus (Brodmann's area 17) receives visual information from the contralateral superior retina representing the inferior visual field. The lingula receives information from the contralateral inferior retina representing the superior visual field. The retinal inputs pass through a "way station" in the [|lateral geniculate nucleus] of the [|thalamus] before projecting to the cortex. Cells on the posterior aspect of the occipital lobes' [|gray matter] are arranged as a spatial map of the retinal field. [|Functional neuroimaging] reveals similar patterns of response in cortical tissue of the lobes when the retinal fields are exposed to a strong pattern. If one occipital lobe is damaged, the result can be [|homonomous] [|vision loss] from similarly positioned "field cuts" in each eye. Occipital [|lesions] can cause visual [|hallucinations]. Lesions in the parietal-temporal-occipital [|association area] are associated with [|color agnosia], [|movement agnosia], and [|agraphia].

Functional anatomy
The occipital lobe is divided into several functional visual areas. Each visual area contains a full map of the visual world. Although there are no anatomical markers distinguishing these areas (except for the prominent striations in the [|striate cortex]), physiologists have used electrode recordings to divide the cortex into different functional regions. The first functional area is the [|primary visual cortex]. It contains a low-level description of the local orientation, spatial-frequency and color properties within small [|receptive fields]. [|Primary visual cortex] projects to the occipital areas of the [|ventral stream] ([|visual area V2] and [|visual area V4]), and the occipital areas of the [|dorsal stream]—[|visual area V3], [|visual area MT] (V5), and the [|dorsomedial area] (DM).