The Occipital Lobe

1. The Occipital Lobe “The Occi” By: Bri Vf. Lindsey W. Jarred T.

2. The Occipital Lobe is the rearmost lobe in each cerebral hemisphere of the brain. It contains the visual center of the brain. • - It is one of the main lobes/regions of the cerebral cortex • Main visual processing (color and face recognition) • Occipital Cortex-(anatomy) a somewhat rounded subdivision of a bodily organ or part. Notes and Vocabulary

3. What body part does it control? The occipital lobe is located at the back of our brain. It is responsible for receiving and processing visual information from our eyes.

4. What happens when this is injured? They are not particularly vulnerable to injury because of their location at the back of the brain, although any significant trauma to the brain could produce subtle changes to our visual-perceptual system, such as visual field defects and scotomas.

5. Visual Hallucination(Epilepsy) Seizures can occur in the occipital lobe, which can cause visual hallucinations. The patient may see rapid blinking, colored lights or flickering lights. Occipital lobe seizures, which the NYU Comprehensive Epilepsy Center states account for 5 to 10 percent of epilepsy cases, can be triggered by flashing lights.

6. Treatment for Epilepsy The majority of epileptic seizures are controlled by medication, particularly anticonvulsant drugs(pain killers). The type of treatment depends on the person’s frequency of seizures, a persons age and weight, overall health, and medical history. Drugs Used to treat Epilepsy- Dilantin or Phenytek Phenobarbital Tegretol or Carbatrol Mysoline Zarontin Depakene Depakote, Depakote ER Valium and similar tranquilizers, such as Tranxene and Klonopin Newer drugs to treat epilepsy include: Felbatol Gabitril Keppra Lamictal Lyrica Neurontin Topamax Trileptal Zonegran

7. Does Lincoln’s face look normal? Activity! Does Lincoln’s face look normal?

8. It seems nor­mal but now, look at it upright: Lincoln’s eyes do not look quite right! It seems nor­mal but now, look at it upright: Lincoln’s eyes do not look quite right! Some neu­rons in the brain seem spe­cial­ized in pro­cess­ing faces. Faces are usu­ally seen upright. When pre­sented upside down, the brain no longer rec­og­nizes a pic­ture of a face as a face but rather as an object. Neu­rons pro­cess­ing objects are dif­fer­ent from those pro­cess­ing faces and not as spe­cial­ized. As a con­se­quence these neu­rons do not respond to face dis­tor­tions as well. This explains why we miss the weird eyes when the face is inverted.

9. Can you see a baby?

10. Another great exam­ple of an illu­sory con­tour! The baby’s head is on the left, the baby’s feet are against the trunk of the tree on the right.

11. Can you put the fish in the fishbowl? Stare at the yel­low stripe in the mid­dle of the fish in the pic­ture below for about 10–20 sec. Then move your gaze to the fish bowl.

12. Did you see a fish of a dif­fer­ent color in the bowl? You have just expe­ri­enced an after­im­age.In the retina of your eyes, there are three types of color recep­tors (cones) that are most sen­si­tive to either red, blue or green. When you stare at a par­tic­u­lar color for too long, these recep­tors get “fatigued.” When you then look at a dif­fer­ent back­ground, the recep­tors that are tired do not work as well. There­fore, the infor­ma­tion from all of the dif­fer­ent color recep­tors is not in bal­ance. This will cre­ate the color “afterimages.”

13. Quiz 1.What does the occipital lobe control and where is it located? 2.What part of the body does it operate?