PSYCH 2E03 Lecture Notes - Lateral Geniculate Nucleus, Reticular Formation, Muscle Tone
13 Jun 2013
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Document Summary
Retrograde fibers to lgn: the first filter; drivers and modulators. Modulators: control the driver (activate or inhibit) thus lgn not only relays functionally distinct, topographically organised visual signals but also regulates the amount of information reaching v1. Ascending reticular formation is important for arousal, attention and learning. Descending reticular formation is important for muscle tone. Amygdala via pulvinar: fear-response pathways features of pulvinar: largest thalamic nucleus in humans (almost 2/5) Higher order relays (adds salience to threatening stimuli) involved in feature-binding: inter-hemispherical intercortical (association, sensory, motor) Amygdala important for visual salience": suppression of noise and enhancement of significant stimulus (especially threat) Pulvinar is important in feature biding: deficits in feature binding in patients with pulvinar damage. Agnosia due to binding-failure when colours are out of context. Action-blindsight (the most common): patients are able to accurately act upon blind field stimuli (e. g. by pointing, grasping, or saccading towards them) Attention-blindsight: e. g. they do not see but sense" or feel" something moving.
