Less than meets the eye: the functional relevance of early visual cortex across the visual domain

Abstract

In a series of areas in the human brains, among which the cerebral cortex, the visual perception is processed. The ‘early visual cortex’ is the area in the cerebral cortex where the visual information first enters. This dissertation reports a study in which the normal brain activity in the early visual cortex is temporarily and locally suppressed by means of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). This temporary suppression turns out to limit the recognition and awareness of visual information, the visual short-term memory and the influencing of behaviour on the basis of visual perception. This proves that the early virtual cortex does not play a specific role in visual perception, but that it is involved in several aspects of visual perception.