seminar: The visual area V6 in the macaque and human brains
speaker: Claudio Galletti (Università di Bologna)abstract: Several dozen visual areas have been described so far in the brain of non-human primates. Thanks to neuroimaging methods, several of these areas have been mapped also in the human brain. In particular, the retinotopically-organized areas V1, V2, V3, V4, and MTV5 have been named in humans based on homologies in their visuotopic organization with non-human primate areas. We have now found a new, retinotopically-organized cortical visual area, that we have called V6, in both macaque and human brains. Area V6 has been first described in the macaque monkey and then, very recently, in human. It is located in the medial parieto-occipital region of the brain and contains a retinotopic map of the entire contralateral hemifield. In contrast to many extrastriate areas, V6 lacks an emphasis on the central visual field. Area V6 receives visual information from V1 and from the other extrastriate areas of the occipital lobe, and sends visual information to different parietal areas, likely for different functional purposes. The macaque V6 is very sensitive to the motion of visual stimuli. Although a direct demonstration of motion sensitivity of human V6 is not yet available, it has been reported that patients with cortical damages which includes the cortical region where V6 is located are unable to recognize the direction of motion of visual stimuli, or even to detect the visual motion per se. According to all these data we suggest that at least one of the duty of V6 is the ‘recognition’ of movement in the visual field.
timetable:
Tue 5 Sep, 9:30 - 10:30, Aula Dini
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