EFFECTS OF VISUAL-CORTEX REMOVAL ON RECEPTIVE-FIELD PROPERTIES OF NEURONS IN LATERAL SUPRASYLVIAN VISUAL AREA OF THE CAT

The results and those of previous studies indicate that the visual cortex has an important influence on visual processing in a large number of visual system structures. Removal of visual cortex inputs alters the receptive-field properties of cells in the lateral posterior-pulvinar complex of the thalamus, dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus, and the crown of the suprasylvian gyrus, in addition to the superior colliculus and LS cortex. Results such as these suggest that the visual cortex has important integrative functions for the visual system, in addition to its presumed role in processing pattern information. As a result, the effects of damage to the visual cortex are much more widespread in the brain than simply a loss of the tissue involved in the lesion. Indeed, the changes in other brain regions may well contribute to the behavioral abnormalities that result from visual cortex damage, and they need to be considered when ascribing behavioral functions on the basis of lesion studies.