How do the two visual streams interact with each other?

Milner, A.D.

doi:10.1007/s00221-017-4917-4

How do the two visual streams interact with each other?

Milner, A.D.

Authors

A.D. Milner

Abstract

The current consensus divides primate cortical visual processing into two broad networks or “streams” composed of highly interconnected areas (Milner and Goodale 2006, 2008; Goodale 2014). The ventral stream, passing from primary visual cortex (V1) through to inferior parts of the temporal lobe, is considered to mediate the transformation of the contents of the visual signal into the mental furniture that guides memory, recognition and conscious perception. In contrast the dorsal stream, passing from V1 through to various areas in the posterior parietal lobe, is generally considered to mediate the visual guidance of action, primarily in real time. The brain, however, does not work through mutually insulated subsystems, and indeed there are well-documented interconnections between the two streams. Evidence for contributions from ventral stream systems to the dorsal stream comes from human neuropsychological and neuroimaging research, and indicates a crucial role in mediating complex and flexible visuomotor skills. Complementary evidence points to a role for posterior dorsal-stream visual analysis in certain aspects of 3-D perceptual function in the ventral stream. A series of studies of a patient with visual form agnosia has been instrumental in shaping our knowledge of what each stream can achieve in isolation; but it has also helped us to tease apart the relative dependence of parietal visuomotor systems on direct bottom-up visual inputs versus inputs redirected via perceptual systems within the ventral stream.

Citation

Milner, A. (2017). How do the two visual streams interact with each other?. Experimental Brain Research, 235(5), 1297-1308. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-017-4917-4

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Feb 13, 2017
Online Publication Date	Mar 2, 2017
Publication Date	May 1, 2017
Deposit Date	Mar 8, 2017
Publicly Available Date	Mar 8, 2017
Journal	Experimental Brain Research
Print ISSN	0014-4819
Electronic ISSN	1432-1106
Publisher	Springer
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	235
Issue	5
Pages	1297-1308
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-017-4917-4

Files

Published Journal Article (Advance online version) (806 Kb)
PDF

Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version © The Author(s) 2017. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.