Final explanation of occipital lobe

January 7 / 2018

Stage: c) taking action

Approaches to learning: Transference skills

During the process of writing this entry I found the occipital lobe to be not as interesting as other parts of the brain such as the frontal lobe, it is just not as mysterious as I hoped it would be because it contributes mainly to vision and even though that function is vital and very important I guess I expected more from this lobe.

OCCIPITAL LOBE: The occipital lobe is located in the forebrain, precisely at the back of the head, under the parietal lobe and above the temporal lobe, it's main contribution to vital functions is the relationship it has with vision, regarding this function it performs a lot of different tasks that contribute to it.

First of all, it pairs with the dorsomedial stream from where it receives inputs related to vision, this inputs are raw visual data provided by the retina via nerve impulses, in other words, the relationship between the occipital lobe, the dorsomedial stream and the retina is the start of it all, after the occipital lobe has received the information it starts to process it and identifies the visual stimuli (meaning it classifies the image and determines wether it is a cat or an ice cream), 

Once the lobe has decided what the stimuli is, it begins to asses the stimuli's characteristics, such as how far away it is, it's size and depth, the color properties it possesses, and wether it is moving or not.

The occipital lobe also aids in reading comprehension and the mapping of the visual world.

Once the occipital lobe completely understands the stimuli, it transmits the information to the temporal and parietal lobes for further processing, it sends the message in the same way in which the retina sends the visual stimuli to the occipital lobe, via nerve impulses trough neurons (also known as nerve cells), that will deliver the message to the desired destination.

In case any harm is inflicted to the occipital lobe, there could be repercussions such as difficulties in recognizing familiar objects or faces and an increased vulnerability to seizures.